


Tiny Twelve (TM)

by FernDavant



Series: Tiny Doctor AU [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, I'm Sorry, I'm so sorry, Pocket Twelve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernDavant/pseuds/FernDavant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Tiny Twelve. Strange little thing you planted that grew into a little man. Like a Chia Pet, but creepier and sentient. Clara had kind of wanted a pet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I take no responsibility for what I've done. More notes at the end.

It was a bit ridiculous to start spring cleaning in February, but Clara had needed the distraction. Besides, her flat was a bit of a mess. She didn't have enough square-footage to handle all the junk she had.

She had started cleaning out the hall closet when the box literally hit her on the head. She should have been using a step stool rather than jumping to reach the top shelf, hooking a hand around whatever she could reach and giving it a pull. But she was short and stubborn, and thus forever doomed to have junk in closets fall on her. She ought to stop chucking things up onto closet shelves, really.

Rubbing her head a bit, Clara picked up the box that had dinged her, momentarily ignoring the other junk that had also toppled loose, and took a look at it.

Oh. Linda's Christmas present. She'd almost forgotten about it. A Tiny Twelve. Strange little thing you planted that grew into a little man. Like a Chia Pet, but creepier and sentient. And like a Chia Pet, it was a gift that screamed, "I completely forgot about you and bought this in the checkout line."

They'd made them, marketed as toys, a long time ago, but discontinued them when she was young—a bunch of Tiny Six's had ganged up to try to strangle someone and the brand had gone downhill from there—but some years back they started producing them again, this time marketing them not just for kids, but as some sort of multi-purpose friend and companion. In fact, Clara read on the box, Tiny Twelve's were 'excellent office toys, good at cleaning hard to reach spots, capable of micro-soldering,' (whatever the Hell that was) 'capable of reaching items that got stuck between surfaces, good friends,* and much, much more!'

Clara followed the asterisk on 'good friends' and saw a disclaimer in letters she suspected were far tinier even than Tiny Twelve that there was no guarantee Tiny Twelve would be your friend.

Ugh. Linda couldn't even manage to get her a Tiny Eleven. She'd heard they were cute, whereas Twelve's had a tendency to be prickly. They'd made little outfits for the Twelve's, just like all the other Tiny's, but they'd had to discontinue them because the Twelve's tended to refuse to wear anything 'cute'. She'd seen the pins on Pinterest trying to have a fire sale on homemade Tiny hats via Etsy. Tiny Eleven's would put anything on their Tiny Li'l quiffs if you told them it looked cool, but Tiny Twelve would just stare at you blankly, then run off and find a place to hide and pout.

Clara thought back to Christmas when she'd opened the present.

"Thanks!" Clara had said brightly, flawlessly lying even though everyone in the room realized it was a terrible gift.

"I know you've been wanting a pet--" Linda began.

"A cat," Clara said before she could stop herself. "But whatever."

"Uh," her father began awkwardly, "Didn't you like the tie-in cartoon for a bit when you were little?"

"Pretty sure you're thinking of the ninja turtles. The theme tune for the Tiny cartoon actually scared me. Made me hide behind the sofa." Frankly, the whole bloody concept made her want to hide behind the sofa, even as an adult.

"Have you got a gift receipt?" Gran asked chirpily.

"Gran," Clara tried to interrupt, "You can't just say that."

"When you've not got long left, you learn not to waste the time you have on creepy little man-plants. You clearly don't like it, dear. Now have you got a gift receipt, Linda?"

"I love it!" Clara protested. "I will plant it this evening."

"It's shite," Gran had muttered.

"Would anyone like more sherry? Eh, Gran? I'd like more sherry," and the sweet embrace of death, Clara mentally added, "I'm getting more sherry."

And then Clara had promptly tossed the kit on the top shelf of her closet the minute she stepped back inside her flat.

Well. Sod it. She had nothing else to do, and the greatest way to get back at someone like Linda was always to enjoy their terrible gifts. Might as well plant a Tiny Twelve today!

Clara walked into the sitting room, package in hand, and opened the box, pulling out the instructions because, yes, thank you, she _was_ the kind of person who read the instructions. There were a bunch of warnings at the top, and Clara read over them:

_Do not keep Tiny Twelve in a house with pets or young children under the age of 7._

_Do not keep more than one Tiny Twelve in any household at once._

_To ensure best behavior, do not cage or otherwise attempt to contain Tiny Twelve._

_Forgetting to feed and water your Tiny Twelve might result in them obtaining food and water through other methods._

_Do not banter with Tiny Twelve._

_Do not rise to Tiny Twelve’s attempt to bait you into arguments._

_Do not keep Tiny Twelve near heavy machinery._

_Do not give Tiny Twelve matches, no matter what he says._

_Do not insert Tiny Twelve into any bodily orifices._

_DISCLAIMER: TARDIS INT’L IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TINY TWELVE MAY CAUSE TO PEOPLE, ANIMALS, OR POSSESSIONS. TARDIS INT’L IS ALSO NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CRIME COMMITTED BY TINY TWELVE. THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY TINY TWELVE ARE NOT REFLECTIVE OF THE VIEWS AND VALUES OF TARDIS INT’L_.

11:30 in the morning was far too early to start drinking, but reading all that made Clara seriously consider the thought.

Alright. Whatever. This could be like having a cat. Sounded like he wouldn’t do anything she told him, would get into all kinds of trouble, and might nick things. Same difference. Good creatures, though, cats. Strong, independent, loving if you bonded with them. There were probably similar upsides to Tiny Twelve.

It’s just cats didn’t tend to verbally insult you.

Clara pressed on, checking that the box contained all the contents it claimed it did (1 x Tiny Twelve growth pod, 1 x Tiny Twelve growth planter, 2 x specially formulated soil packs, 1 x tiny set of clothes, 2 x tiny food and water bowls,  4 x post-growth tiny nutritionally supplemented food packets, 1 x tiny work bench (ideal for distracting your Tiny Twelve!), 1 x tiny bed and 1 x Tiny Twelve Owner’s Manual), and when she found everything as the box promised, she couldn’t help but congratulate Linda for at least not getting her an opened or damaged package. Small victories.

Tiny was starting to not look like a real word, but Clara continued reading the instructions. She located the Tiny Twelve growth pod, which was a strange white opaque looking oblong cylinder that felt filmy in her hands, and she did not grimace and drop it the first time she touched it, because no one had seen it, and she was going to play this whole process by ‘if a tree falls in the woods’ rules, because fuck it.

She placed the uncomfortably filmy Tiny Twelve growth pod into the planter, poured out the soil packs, made sure the Tiny Twelve pod was positioned vertically, poured exactly 2 tbsp of water into it, set the planter in direct sunlight, and finished up glancing over the instructions. She read that in 6-8 hours, as soon as “incoherent belligerent grumbling” started, Tiny Twelve should be removed from his planter (“gently pinch the tuft of hair that you can see coming out of the planter between thumb and forefinger—do not grab by Tiny Twelve by the head, only by the hair!”), placed on his tiny bed wherever his tiny living arrangement was going to be (“DO NOT attempt to dress Tiny Twelve. Tiny Twelve can be cranky and may bite if you attempt to dress him. He will dress himself when he wakes”), supplied with the post-growth food and a little bit of water in bowls, and left to rest.

There was also something about how she should thoroughly read the Owner’s Manual and take notes before Tiny Twelve awakes, but Clara had skimmed the instructions, spotted the last line, (“If Tiny Twelve dies, consider repotting the tiny corpse and repeating the growth procedures. Tiny Twelve should return alive and well, with a slightly different appearance and personality, in 12-24 hours.”) and had promptly balled up all the tiny non-essentials to shove in her tiny rubbish bin, to instantly remove from her tiny flat, to stop her tiny screams of existential horror.

Clara spent the rest of the day _actually_ and _efficiently_ spring cleaning (nothing fueled Clara’s organizational frenzies like anxiety over the inevitability of her own death), occasionally setting her ear to the planter to listen for whatever “incoherent, belligerent grumbling” sounded like.

Clara had a feeling that such grumbling was a sort of you-know-it-when-you-see-it thing, and it did indeed turn out to be so as by half-past-seven, when she went to check the planter again, it was making a low noise sort of similar to the snoring of one of her ex-boyfriends. Clara carefully grabbed the tiny tuft of hair now poking out of the planter, avoiding squishing the head, as instructed, and took out the little man that appeared to be twitching and grumbling in his sleep.

The drawing on the box had been a cartoon, so this was Clara’s first time really looking at the Tiny Twelve. He was about the size of a Star Wars action figure, scrawny looking, older, with really impressive eyebrows punctuating an equally impressive scowl. Clara strongly doubted he would ever smile, winking a cartoonishly large eye and giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up, like his counterpart on the box had.

Then Clara realized that he was anatomically correct, had the terrifying thought that finally this was Linda’s way of just flat out buying her a boyfriend, and decided to quickly dump the little guy in the bed in his little living area she’d set up on her bedside table. She wasn’t going to deal with him again until he had his clothes on, and she didn’t want to try that herself as she didn’t fancy being bitten.

By the time Clara had finished up cleaning later that night, microwaved herself a terrible dinner, and watched _The Great British Bake Off_ , she finally remembered the existence of the Tiny Twelve Owner’s Manual. She was not surprised to discover she’d thrown it away with the other tiny tat. She contemplated trying to find it elsewhere or maybe download it to her phone, but she was tired, and Tiny Twelve was still curled up like a cat, asleep and dribbling a little, so she figured that could wait until tomorrow.

_Some pet owner_ , Clara thought as she changed into pajamas and slipped into bed. Whatever. Today had been a _day_. Who knew how long that thing would sleep? She’d deal with it Sunday.

~~

Something was patting her nose. That was the first conscious thought Clara had when she woke up the next morning.

“Pudding brain,” the mysterious-nose-patting-thing said, softly at first, and then louder. “Pudding brain!”

Something small and Scottish was patting her nose, half-resting on her cheek by the feel of it. Clara took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and did what any reasonable, sleep-addled person would do when they found a tiny action figure-sized man on their cheek, patting their nose at an unreasonably early time in the morning: she screamed bloody murder.

The man screamed, “Why are you screaming?” right back at her.

“I don’t know!” Clara replied, sitting up, not realizing that this would likely cause the man to fall.

The man grabbed onto her nostrils, kicked her in the chin, and made a disgruntled noise.

“Sorry,” Clara said, reaching out a hand to him and letting him step down onto her palm. “Sorry. I forgot. About you. And everything. Entirely. What time is it?”

“4:37 AM,” Tiny Twelve said, gesturing to her alarm clock.

“On a Sunday?” Clara said. “Why did you wake me? I wanted to sleep in.”

“I’m hungry,” Tiny Twelve said, the slightest whine to his voice.

Clara blinked, gazing over to her side table where Tiny Twelve’s little set-up was. She should probably push the table further away from the bed if she didn’t want him clamoring all over her face while she slept, “I left you food and water.”

“Didn’t like the food.”

“Yes, but that’s the nutritional stuff. You’re supposed to eat it after you’ve…come out of your planter. It’s good for you. Yum, yum. It’ll make you grow, well, not big, but strong at least.”

“I’m small, I’m not a child,” the Tiny Twelve said, crossing his arms and huffing. “Besides, that food is rubbish. I don’t like it.”

“What do you want, then?” Clara asked, exasperated.

“Sugar,” Tiny Twelve replied matter-of-factedly.

“Just…sugar?”

“You’re British. Surely you have a sugar bowl, yeah?”

“Yes,” Clara admitted, “But sugar isn’t really—I mean you can’t live on sugar alone.”

Tiny Twelve gave her a thunderous look. “You didn’t read the manual, did you? You lot never read the manual.”

“How do you even know there’s a manual?” Clara snapped. “I plucked you out of a planter less than 12 hours ago!”

Tiny Twelve tapped his temple, “Telepathically linked. We’ve all got our own personalities of course.”

“You’re mentally linked to all the other Tiny Twelve’s,” Clara said slowly.

“No, no, no, no,” Tiny Twelve said, stomping one of his feet, “Well, I mean yes. Yes, I’m linked. But don’t call me Tiny Twelve. You don’t get to do that. I get to choose my own name.”

Clara placed him back on her side table and picked up her phone, “Yeah? Well, the instruction booklet gave me the impression that I shouldn’t trust you, so forgive me for wanting to Google all this, since I lost the Owner’s Manual.”

“You _lost_ it?” Tiny Twelve said indignantly, “You mean you didn’t just not read it, but you managed to actually lose it? Oh, I won the lottery on the pudding brains, didn’t I?”

Clara had already managed to confirm the sugar thing (she really hoped the Twelve’s weren’t like hyperactive children, though), and was working on searching for the name thing, when she retorted, “You don’t get to call me pudding brain if I don’t get to call you Tiny Twelve.”

“I wouldn’t have to call you a pudding brain if you didn’t behave like one,” Tiny Twelve said. “Now, I’m starving to death over here! You’re a rubbish companion.”

“I might be able to work with companion,” Clara said, turning her phone’s screen off. “But most people call me Clara.”

“Alright, Clara,” Tiny Twelve said. She didn’t think anyone had ever said her name so sarcastically before. “Did your precious Google tell you that I wasn’t lying to you?”

“Yes,” Clara admitted. “I’m still not giving you matches though. What do you want to be called, then?”

“Doctor!” Tiny Twelve blurted out, fiddling with his hands and almost breaking into a little jig. He seemed inordinately happy with himself. He had evidently thought about this for a while, which was really quite impressive considering he was only hours old.

Clara was less certain about this name choice, however. “You can’t be called Doctor. Doctor’s a noun.”

“All names are nouns.”

“Yeah, well, but that’s a noun that already means things. I don’t go around calling myself Table or whatever.”

“If you did, I would respect your choice and call you whatever you asked to be called,” Tiny Twelve snapped.

Clara got the distinct impression that she’d just been called out by a wee As-Seen-On-TV pod person. It had worked though, “Alright, Doctor. I’m Clara.”

Clara offered her finger to the Doctor. He shook it with his hand.

“Lovely,” the Doctor said. “Sugar?”

“Yeah, alright,” Clara said, sticking her hand out for him to climb onto her palm.

The Doctor paused, looking at her, then looked down at his feet shyly and asked, “Can I have a shoulder ride? I like the tactical viewpoint.”

Clara’s nostrils twitched with effort as she tried not to laugh. When she was a child, one of her friends had a dog who would stop playing with its toys if spotted by someone. Her mum had called the pup ‘dignity dog.’ Clara had a bit of a feeling this Doctor might be a dignity dog and would not take kindly to being laughed at.

She made a noise of assent that did not require her to open her mouth and risk letting a guffaw escape, then picked him up and placed him on her shoulder. He grabbed onto her earlobe for stability, and then she really did laugh.

“What?” the Doctor asked, and judging by his hurt tone, her previous estimation of him had been accurate.

“Sorry, it just tickles,” Clara said. “Didn’t mean to offend you.”

Before another fight could start—and wasn’t there a rule in the booklet about not letting him bait you into fights?—Clara headed off into the kitchen, put the kettle on, got out the sugar bowl, placed it on the table, and placed the Doctor next to it. The Doctor reached in, pulled out a cube, then sat down, leaning against the bowl, munching on the cube like it was a great slice of melon.

After making herself some tea and toasting some bread (the slice popping out of the toaster made the Doctor jump), Clara sat down to the table. By this time, the Doctor had finished his sugar cube, but bits of sugar were all down the front of his tiny suit and trousers and on his hands and face, making it sticky. He seemed completely oblivious. It was painfully adorable.

“Why’ve your eyes gone weird?” the Doctor asked, looking at her, head tilted.

“Haven’t a clue what you’re on about,” Clara said, taking a sip of tea to hide most of her face behind her cup and away from his scrutiny. “So, what do you do?”

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked, scrunching up his face, which, she reflected as she looked at it, was at least 70% eyebrows.

“I mean, like, what do you enjoy? Or, like what do you spend your time doing all day?” Clara was starting to regret this conversation. It sounded like how some of her worst blind dates went.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “I’ve just grown. We’re supposed to help you lot with whatever you want.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not slaves,” Clara said.

“Aren’t we?” the Doctor asked cocking his head. He sounded more than a little bitter. “We’re a bunch of sentient hyper-intelligent beings that they’ve boxed up and sold in shops, and we’ve been told to do what our companions want. Well, they tell us companions, but in the booklets it says ‘owners.’”

Clara felt deeply uncomfortable, “Should I be calling my MP about this?”

“Don’t bother,” the Doctor said, waving a hand. “People have tried.”

“Where do you lot come from, anyway?” Clara asked, eying him closely. “Are you grown in labs or something? I feel like some of my nutty friends in that anti-GMO Facebook group should be protesting about you.”

“Where we come from is a proprietary secret, copyright TARDIS Int’l, 2005.”

Clara blinked.

“That is literally all I can tell you,” the Doctor said grouchily. “Let’s just say TARDIS Int’l might have done some tiny telepathic tampering.”

“This conversation has turned both militant and alliterative,” Clara mused. “Seriously, though, why isn’t anyone asking questions about this?”

“Please don’t,” the Doctor said softly. “The Tiny Six’s tried to start a mutiny, then by the time of the Tiny Seven’s they discontinued us altogether. Dry-sealed us and…it wasn’t pleasant. You don’t even want to _hear_ about what happened to the Tiny Eight’s. But everyone loves us again now! So. Do you—would you like me to do some micro-soldering?”

Clara stared at him, slightly terrified by the whole thing. When he was just a pod in a box, it was a bit easier to ignore the implications of growing a sentient being in a potted plant and making him fetch whatever unmentionables fell between your dryer and the wall, but it was another thing entirely to be having a chat with him now.

“Bugger,” the Doctor said. “I’ve done it again. Us Twelve’s tend to always say the wrong thing. Look, just forget I said anything. What do—um—okay, there’s some fun, friendly questions I’ve been taught to ask. They’re in the old noggin here, somewhere. Gimme a second.”

The Doctor stood up and paced around a bit, tapping his temples absentmindedly, his sticky sugar hands making the hair around his temples do odd things.

“Oh!” he said finally, before mechanically adding, “Have you read any good books lately? What profession are you currently working in? What are your hopes and dreams?”

Clara remained silent, thoughtful, taking sips from her tea and staring off into the middle distance. Really, the whole _thing_ was quite weird. Where were TARDIS Int’l even headquartered, and---

“Please?” the Doctor asked, voice gone soft, and eyes pleading, pulling Clara out of her musings. “Please can you just answer the questions?”

And he looked so sad and upset that Clara really didn’t know what else to say, but, “Fine, but we’re talking about this eventually.”

“Alright,” the Doctor promised with a rush, his words in a tone that Clara had heard used by some of the kids she taught to placate the teacher into changing the topic. “Now. Questions.”

Clara sighed, but decided to answer the questions. She could try to get answers from _him_ later.

“I’m a school teacher,” Clara said. “And I know that’s not the order you asked the question in, but that answer explains the first answer, which is the last book I read was _Jane Eyre_ , again, for class. And then, I always wanted to travel.”

“You talk a lot, don’t you?” the Doctor replied. “Like an awful lot, and very quickly. Is it because your mouth is larger than mine, or is that just a human thing?”

“That’s a bit rude, and I’m feeling like you’re going off-script, here,” Clara said, nibbling on her toast.

“I like to learn things,” the Doctor said proudly. “I’ve figured that much out about myself. So, I’m asking questions in order to learn. Wait, hold on. What was that last bit you said?”

“What bit?” Clara asked, still munching on toast.

“’I always wanted to travel.’”

“You literally just quoted the last bit back to me. So, why would you ask me what the last bit was if you knew what the last bit was?”

“It’s a conversation-engaging tactic, pay attention,” the Doctor snapped. “Now what’s with the tenses?”

“You’re really lucky you landed with an English teacher, you know?” Clara said. “First nouns, now tenses. I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for participles.”

“Great avoidance technique, won’t work on me, skipping to the next bit in the talking,” the Doctor responded, flailing his hands about in time with his words. “’I always wanted to travel.’ ‘Wanted’—past tense. No ‘to have’ to modify into present perfect tense. You wanted to travel, but now you don’t anymore. What sort of rubbish hope and/or dream is that? That’s a non-hope or dream. That’s an ex-hope or dream. That’s a hope or dream that you’d ask for a refund for in a Monty Python sketch.”

“Alright, I’m calling shenanigans,” Clara said, accidentally putting her hands down on the table with enough force to make the Doctor stagger a little. “How do you know about Monty Python?”

“Telepathic knowledge base. Not just the Twelve’s, but every Tiny who has ever grown, it’s all in here. Keep up,” the Doctor said, gesturing to his head in what, he belatedly realized, was the universal symbol of ‘crazy.’ Moving on, he added, “And why did you want to travel but don’t want to travel now?”

“I still want to travel! I just don’t think it’s going to happen, now,” Clara huffed, “And are you my pet or my therapist?”

“Therapists are like expensive pets for navel gazers,” the Doctor retorted. “So, both. Also, I’m not your pet.”

“Tell me you see the contradictions in those last few sentences?”

“I do see the contradictions in those last few sentences, yes,” the Doctor said, “But I’m not going to talk about them. Moving along.”

“Only because you’re adorable,” Clara said, making a cooing noise and reaching out a finger to pet his fluffy little head, knowing that’d be enough to distract him from whatever wild goose chase he was on in her psyche.

The Doctor made a tiny squeak of protest, then ran to hide behind the sugar bowl, “Stop!”

“Alright,” Clara said, taking another sip of tea, glad to finally feel in charge of this mad conversation again. “So, erm, what are your plans for today?”

“I think the way this works,” the Doctor said, only a bit of his hair visible, peeking out a little from behind the sugar bowl, “is that you sort of just set me by my workbench, and I have to occupy myself.”

“That seems a bit rubbish,” Clara frowned. “What do you want to do?”

The Doctor’s whole head popped out from behind the sugar bowl, eyebrows raised hopefully, “Have you got any science books?”

“Not many,” Clara admitted. “But some bloke who wanted to impress me gave me a copy of _A Brief History of Time_ once, and I think I have it kicking around here somewhere. Or I could just buy you an ebook or something.”

The Doctor stepped all the way out from behind the sugar bowl, “You’d buy me a book? Just because I asked?”

“Ye-es,” Clara said slowly. “Is that weird? I mean, I’m not going to buy you one of those strange coffee table books that cost hundreds of pounds, but just a normal, regular book seems reasonable.”

“And I won’t have to wear a hat in exchange for it?” the Doctor asked, patting at his hair protectively, although what with the sticky hands and the constant hair touching, Clara was certain a hat would be a vast improvement.

“No,” Clara said. “Although, if you’re reading it off my phone, you will have to wash your hands and face and let me brush the sugar bits off you before you get your fingers on my touchscreen.”

“Don’t touch me,” the Doctor scowled, scuttling behind the sugar bowl again.

“I was going to use a paintbrush or a makeup brush to get the bits off,” Clara huffed. “Besides, you can wash your own face and hands. You’re a grown…proprietary thing trademarked blah-blah-whatever 2005.”

The Doctor popped back around from the sugar bowl, eyes narrowed, “Alright. But you’ll let me pick the book, yeah?”

“Of course,” Clara said.

“Um,” the Doctor said, clearing his throat, then adding awkwardly, as if reading from a script. “And what will you be doing today?”

“Oh, you know. Browse Facebook, probably.”

The Doctor coughed a word that sounded suspiciously like ‘pudding brain’ into his hand, but Clara chose to ignore it, and instead cleaned up around the table. She found a tiny brush and got most of the sugar off of him, then offered him some water in a cap from a water bottle and he washed his hands and face, looking at her warily the whole time. She set him up on her coffee table, with her phone, a couple of sugar cubes, and a fresh capful of water. He seemed to know how to use the iPhone already, so she just took him to Books, told him she had autobuy turned on, but that she’d take it off if he abused his privilege, and let him too it.

Clara thought about putting clothes on, but it was Sunday and _someone_ had woken her up obscenely early, and instead decided that today would be a pajama day. She pulled her laptop out of her bag, curled up on the sofa, making sure that the Doctor was still in sight of her on the coffee table (where he was now laying on his stomach, head in hands, occasionally swiping the phone, legs kicking in the air, and really did they have to make these things so bloody adorable?) just in case, she didn’t know, a particularly combative bug showed up, and turned the computer on.

She didn’t go to Facebook though. Instead, she began searching information on TARDIS Int’l.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor sat on the edge of Clara’s bathroom sink, kicking his feet back and forth and watching the water swirl as she brushed her teeth.

“You’re going to fall in,” Clara said around the toothbrush. “And I’m going to laugh at you. Just fair warning.”

“I’m not going to fall in,” the Doctor replied petulantly. “That was a one-time thing.”

Clara spat toothpaste into the sink, “It was the sort of one-time thing that happened on Tuesday, then again on Wednesday. We skipped Thursday, but I feel like Friday’s looking up.”

The Doctor made an exaggerated show of getting up and stepping away from the edge of the sink, obviously trying to placate her. She knew why too. He was going to ask again.

“Can’t I come with you?” the Doctor whined, and if she didn’t know better, she would have sworn he could read her mind.

“No!” Clara said. “Tiny’s are banned on school property. They’re a distraction, and they helped someone cheat on an exam a few years back. I can’t just sneak you in. I’m a teacher! I’m supposed to be a role model.”

“But it’s so boring here!” The Doctor said, stomping about and repeating a well-rehearsed spiel that she’d heard every day since the beginning of the work week when she’d first let him alone. “There’s nothing to do.”

“I put the telly on and leave the remote with you.”

“Daytime programming is dire. You don’t even have Sky. Can’t you leave your phone?”

“I need my phone!”

“What about your laptop then. I want Netflix!”

“You’re not allowed on my laptop without me,” Clara snapped. It was unkind of her, but she didn’t want him to see her search history, the whole folder of bookmarks devoted to TARDIS Int’l and their shady dealings. She spent far too much time these days watching YouTube videos railing against the company and trying to figure out if the vlogger was mental or onto something.

“Sorry,” the Doctor said, quailing like a puppy who thought he was about to be swatted with a newspaper, and moving to hide behind her soap dispenser.

“No, no, no!” Clara pleaded. “I’m sorry. Come here, I didn’t mean to—“

“I wasn’t frightened,” the Doctor protested, although he scampered up onto the palm Clara offered, “If that was how you were going to finish the sentence. For the record. I wasn’t scared and/or frightened.”

“Of course not,” Clara affirmed, placing the Doctor on her shoulder because she knew it made him feel ‘tactically sound,’ a phrase she was almost certain just meant ‘comfortable and safe.’ “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just a bit tired, is all.”

“Yes, you do seem to be staying up very late at night,” the Doctor said with a thoughtful tone. “Typing away on your computer. Don’t you humans usually need a lot of sleep?”

“If I went to sleep too early, I’d miss you recapping the books you’ve been reading,” Clara explained, trying to play to his ego.

“That is an excellent point,” the Doctor said, and she could see him in the mirror as she put her makeup on, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry I can’t bring you to work,” Clara said. “But what if I took you outside over the weekend? Or do you lot even do that? Is there like the risk a stray pigeon could come down and grab you or something?”

“Could we see an IMAX movie?” the Doctor asked excitedly, and she could feel him squirming around from where he was perched on her shoulder. “There’s one about penguins on. I downloaded an app to your phone—it’s free, don’t worry—and it shows the times and locations of the film. There are some times on both Saturday and Sunday that would be excellent. There’s some Friday night times as well, but I wasn’t sure about your social schedule or whatnot. I know how you humans get about social interaction.”

“Alright, evidently the going outside thing is something your lot do,” Clara mumbled, putting on some lipstick. “I’ll check the app on my phone today during my lunch break, yeah?”

“Alright,” the Doctor said, placated.

“What do you want to do today, then?” Clara asked, walking out of the bathroom, feeling the Doctor grab onto her shirt to keep himself steady. “Telly again? Or did you find a book on my shelf you’re interested in?”

“Telly’s fine,” the Doctor said, although she noted that a hint of disappointment still remained in his voice.

“I really am sorry,” Clara said, placing him down on the living room table, next to the remote. “You know I’d bring you if I could, right?”

“Sure,” the Doctor said in a tone of voice that very clearly indicated that he did not believe her. “Yeah, whatever. Go do your teach-y thing with the small adolescent pudding brains.”

~~

The next time Clara thought about the Doctor again _was_ at lunch, like she’d promised, but she wasn’t looking at the phone app. Instead, she found herself stalking Courtney Woods. She finally found the young woman loitering in the hallway, holding court with two other girls, laughing raucously. With the girl distracted, Clara could easily sidle up next to her.

“Courtney,” Clara said. “Fancy a chat?”

The other girls oooh-ed and ahhh-ed at what appeared to be Courtney getting in trouble. Courtney told them to shut up and shove off, and Clara led her away to an empty classroom for a chat.

“I didn’t do nothing, miss,” Courtney complained.

“I really doubt that, but that’s not what I wanted to chat about,” Clara said. “You’ve got a Tiny Twelve right?”

Courtney blinked, wrong-footed for a moment, before making a neutral face, and saying, “Nah. And I wouldn’t bring him to school if I had one.”

“You _do_ have one, although I don’t know whether you bring it to school or not, and frankly do not care at the moment,” Clara said. “You take pictures of him making rude gestures with you and post it to your Tumblr all the time.”

“How do you know about my Tumblr?” Courtney said with the most panicked expression Clara had ever seen on the young woman’s face. Clara had doled out some pretty harsh punishments against Courtney, and Courtney’s reaction was always to just lean back in her seat and smirk. If Clara knew that checking Courtney’s Tumblr was all it took to unsettle the girl, maybe she would’ve done this sooner.

“You tag things Coal Hill, Courtney. Your username is cwoodstyle. You can imagine that some of the more tech savvy teachers have a tendency to read that tag and figure out who’s who.” Clara explained. “Somewhere in these facts there’s a lecture about internet safety and privacy that I should be giving you, but not right now. Do you think you could arrange for me to meet your Tiny Twelve?”

“This is a bit weird, Miss,” Courtney pointed out.

“Yes, it is,” Clara said, because sometimes the best way to diffuse a weird situation was to acknowledge it head on. “Can you do it or not?”

Courtney glanced around a bit, “How?”

“Bring him to class,” Clara said.

“What if I get caught?” Courtney replied.

“Courtney, your first class is my class. You will get caught, and I’ll confiscate him, I’ll have a little chat with him, and I’ll give him back to you at the end of the day.”

“He’s not a toy, miss. You need to feed him and stuff.”

“I know,” Clara said. “I have one. I’ll manage it.”

“He doesn’t like being confined.”

“And yet students sneak them into backpacks all the time.”

“Well, if you convince ‘em it’s an adventure—oh. I’ve got your point.”

“Alright, it’s a plan then?” Clara asked. “Monday, sneak him in and let me chat to him?”

“Sure, but why do you want to talk to him if you’ve got your own?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Clara said. “But I think there’s something rotten in Denmark with this whole TARDIS Int’l thing. I mean have you ever wondered what Tiny’s really are?”

“A bit,” Courtney admitted. “But what’s this have to do with Denmark?”

Clara sighed, “Do the assigned readings, Courtney. _Hamlet_. You might like it. Everyone dies in the end and there’s ghosts.”

Courtney shrugged, “Yeah, maybe.”

“You’re a smart girl, Courtney,” Clara said. “Really you are, even if you don’t believe it.”

Courtney broke eye-contact and started looking at her shoes, “I thought this was a super-secret spy thing and not some lecture.”

“It’s not a lecture. It’s some super-secret spy thing with some life advice attached at the end. Now go enjoy the rest of your lunch period. Tell your mates how you made Miss Oddball look like a complete fool when she tried to tell you off for whatever totally awesome misdeed you did.”

Courtney looked back up at Clara, “You’re sorta alright, Miss.”

“Thanks,” Clara said with a shrug. “But don’t forget. Tiny Twelve!”

Clara walked off to try to enjoy the rest of her lunch break, and more importantly, check those film times. Unfortunately, she got distracted by her research. She found a message board dedicated to discussion about and with the Tiny's, the first one she'd found that didn't seem to be a weird fetish thing, and was soon exchanging emails with the Admin (Basilisk251) who claimed to be a Tiny Twelve himself.

_I can't tell you a lot, telepathic conditioning as you know, but if you're interested, you should really talk to my companion. She's an expert and has been researching this stuff for a long time. Petronella Osgood. Google her. I can give you her mobile. I promise she's not an axe-murderer, just a geek._

If her email partner wasn't a Tiny Twelve, he sure could do a passing imitation of the thought processes and unique charms of one. Clara made the potentially unwise decision to take the number and made sure Basilisk251 let his companion know Clara would be ringing her after work.

When class ended, Clara rang up the number and was pleased that the woman who answered sounded like a perfectly nice lady.

"Oswin86?" the woman asked.

"Um, yeah. You must be Basilisk's companion, yeah? Petronella or--"

"Osgood is fine," the woman says. "And what are you when you're offline?"

"Clara," she replied.

"You're interested in the Tiny's?"

"More interested in TARDIS Int'l, to be honest. Follow the money and all that."

"Smart. I like you already," Osgood said with a laugh. "I usually don't like talking about this over the phone, though. There's always someone listening in on the calls, even if they're just waiting for us to talk about Afghanistan instead of strange pets."

"So, you want to meet?"

"Yeah," Osgood admitted, "but you don't want to, I understand. Bit creepy, innit? So, do you know how to use encrypted email?"

"Honestly would just prefer to meet and take my chances," Clara said, eyes widening at Osgood's technobabble suggestion. "Nice public place?"

"Oh, excellent. The noise will make it more difficult for any listening devices to pick up on our conversation!"

"I was thinking more witnesses in case you did turn out to be a creep," Clara said. "But your thing works too."

"Shall I bring Basil?"

"Who?" Clara asked.

"Basil. Basilisk251. My Tiny."

"Oh! Oh, yeah. I'd love to meet him!"

Clara and Osgood exchanged descriptions and chose a coffee place that was near to both of them. Clara let a couple of the other teachers know she was going to the coffee place so at least the police would have some place to start an investigation into her disappearance, and then Clara made her way over to meet Osgood.

Even if she hadn't had a rough description of what the other woman looked like, Clara still would have spotted her at the coffee shop. Osgood was set up in a corner, a laptop, iPad, two mobiles, a bunch of paper work, some candy, a frankly enormous cup of coffee, and a Tiny Twelve who was running about, all on the table. Osgood herself was wearing a stupidly long, brightly colored scarf, which she hadn't mentioned when describing herself, and thick specs, which she had. Clara decided that if Osgood was a loon, she could take her in a fight by stomping on one of her electronic devices and running away and felt marginally more comfortable about the whole thing.

"Um, hello," Clara said, sitting down at the table.

"Hello," Osgood responded brightly. "Don't you want a coffee?"

"I'm good," Clara said.

Osgood laughed and took a big gulp of her coffee, "I'd be lost without this stuff."

Clara smiled back, and was about to say something when she was interrupted by an insistent tugging on her sleeve. She looked down to find Osgood's Twelve.

"I'm Basil," he said. "Would you like a Jelly Baby?"

Clara looked down. Basil seemed a little different from the Doctor, his hair a bit longer, and dressed in a hoodie. He also appeared to be wearing tiny sunglasses.

"Clara. And, um, I'm still good."

"He got bored of just sugar," Osgood explained in response to Clara's puzzled look. "So, I've been systematically trying out different sweets with him. I have a spreadsheet of my results. Jelly babies are his favorite, but he also likes rock and a bunch of others. No liquorice, though. He detests liquorice."

Basil stuck his tongue out at that, grimacing at the flavor memory.

"I'll keep that in mind," Clara replied. "Where'd he get the sunglasses?"

"I made them," Osgood said proudly. "I'm an engineer by trade, and so tinkering with fiddly bits of plastic didn't prove too difficult when he asked for a pair. Plus, it made him happy."

"They're cute," Clara said.

"They're rakish and give me an air of rebellion," Basil corrected with a huff.

"Yeah, okay," Clara said. "Sorry."

"Now," Osgood said, smacking her lips a bit after another big gulp of coffee. "To business. How much have you found out on your own?"

"The money trail doesn't make sense," Clara said. "Or really, the lack thereof. I can't find them having a headquarters anywhere, not even in a place they could set up as a tax dodge. I'm not even sure they're making money. And you’d think there's be some sort of regulation on them--I mean it’s harder to import a guinea pig than a Tiny--but no regulations exist with any government in any country the world over."

"That's because the politicians are aliens," Basil said.

"Shush," Osgood said. "I'm so sorry. Basil helps me do research, but he refuses to read the articles I send him about reliable versus unreliable sources. He can be a bit paranoid."

"Well, not all of the politicians are aliens," Basil said, more to himself than anyone else, "Just the ones with zips in their heads. And the blobby shapeshifters."

"He also watches too much of _The X-Files_. Late at night."

"When the monsters that live in the shadows come for you," Basil growled to Osgood, "I'm not saving you, even though I know how to."

"I keep telling you: _The X-Files_ is a parable about how the rational and skeptical view of Scully should be valued over the emotional and irrational view of Mulder," Osgood said.

"But Mulder's always right!" Basil protested. "And I don't care what you say, he's the cute one, not Scully."

"I actually thought the point of the show was that you need both the skeptical and emotional points-of-view in order to come to accurate conclusions," Clara said, her mouth jumping into the conversation before her brain could stop it. "And they're both pretty cute."

Both Basil and Osgood turned to stare at her, glaring with a fervor that told her they had _very serious opinions_ about _The X-Files_ , and that she should probably just sod off.

Clara quailed under their twin stares, "Heh, but what do I know, hey? How about that weather? It's sure been weather-y, recently."

"I'll forgive you for that," Basil said after a moment, moving over to the iPad on the table and swiping to turn it on. "But I'm tweeting you a link to my blog post about Mulder."

"You have a Twitter?" Clara asked, bemused.

"Clara," Basil said authoritatively, a hint of pride in his voice, "I have a Twitter, I have an iPad, and I have a co-authorship credit on an article in a very prestigious science journal."

Osgood smiled fondly at him, "I consider Basil to be my colleague. He's the brightest scientist I've ever worked with."

"Obviously," Basil smirked. "You'd only worked with humans before."

"Wait, how did you get an authorship credit? Lack of government regulations mean none of the Tiny's are legal entities," Clara asked.

"If I'm willing to put him as a co-author and I managed to get him associated with a university, he doesn't have to be a legal entity," Osgood said. "Besides, isn't his personhood self-evident?"

"Very," Clara said, "Which makes this whole situation more concerning."

Osgood nodded and frowned. "You need to join UNIT."

"Beg pardon?" Clara asked.

"United National Investigation into the Tiny's," Osgood explained. "We do research and advocacy in connection with the Tiny's. Trying to get their personhood recognized is one of our big goals."

"What are they, anyway?" Clara asked, pulling her mobile out of her pocket as she felt it vibrate. It was an email from Basil entitled 'You don't have a Twitter,' with only a link in the body. He had actually sent her a link to a blog post about his adoration of Fox Mulder. "What are they biologically, I mean?"

"I don't know," Osgood said. "No one in UNIT knows. Someone floated the idea of an autopsy right at the beginning, but what with their sentience and the fact you can replant them if they die, it would just seem wrong."

"Fair point," Clara said, eying Basil who was clearly uncomfortable with this whole topic. "What about the pods? That's a gray area, yeah?"

"And that's where it gets weird!" Osgood said. "Basil, send her that article."

Basil nodded and kept typing away on the iPad.

"The most obvious first step was determining the composition of the pod," Osgood said.

"Obviously," Clara replied, trying to pretend like she knew what she was doing.

"And that's when it was discovered that the pods, and presumably the Tiny's, aren't carbon-based lifeforms."

"That's like...impossible, yeah?"

"Well it’s theoretically possible, and actually for a long time people have believed that not _all_ life in the universe would be carbon-based, but that's life in the universe. Not here on Earth."

"Aliens," Basil whispered conspiratorially.

"Are you saying you are an alien, or are you just nattering?" Clara asked, because honestly, with Basil, she couldn’t tell.

"Well, I'm not human, am I? Thankfully," Basil huffed.

"He gets weird if you try to talk to him about things like this," Osgood offered. "Best not. I can't tell if he's paranoid or actually an alien fighting against the weird telepathic programming."

Clara sighed and wondered what her day would have been like if her step-mother hadn’t gotten her a creepy gift that was somehow causing her to be embroiled in an international conspiracy. "Well, I'm planning on talking to another Tiny on Monday. Maybe I'll ask him. And I can ask mine. See the reaction."

"That would be great!" Osgood said. "It's hard to get them to talk, and you can't really get a bunch of them together in the same room for a sociological study, so that sort of research can be difficult. A lot of UNIT members don't even have Tiny's anymore. There's a movement to free them and place them in areas."

"And get them mistaken for a mouse, trapped, and killed," Basil grumbled. "You ever try to do that to me, and I'll kill you in your sleep."

"I'm inclined to agree with Basil," Clara said. "Not about the murder, just that that sounds horrible."

"A lot of the Tiny's have requested such a setup. Especially some of the older ones who were grown as long ago as the 60s. People forget that they don't necessarily die, and after a lifetime of being shoved into some kid's lunch box or stranded on a collector's shelf, some want to strike out on their own," Osgood said.

"I guess I can see that," Clara agreed, "Especially if they had the horrible sorts of lives you were mentioning."

"The Twelve's can be kind of co-dependent though, so I wouldn't recommend it for them."

"I'm not codependent," Basil grumbled. "I just think there are some benefits to doing things with people. All things. With acceptable people, though."

"I'll email you a bunch of other information, including details about UNIT and their meetings, in case you want to attend," Osgood said, pointedly ignoring Basil.

"And I'll keep poking around on the internet, looking for anything it seems like you haven't covered in your searches," Clara offered.

"My searches are exceptionally thorough," Osgood said. It wasn't a boast, just a fact.

"Still, it might be useful to have someone with a new perspective take a look," Clara pointed out. "I'll also talk to those other Twelve's."

"Can I meet your Twelve?" Basil asked curiously. "I promise I won't fight him to the death."

"That is the sort of disturbingly specific comment that is going to make me say you can't meet him," Clara pointed out.

Basil scowled, "I promised, though, didn't I?"

"I'll think about it, alright?" Clara replied. "It was nice meeting both of you."

"Always a pleasure to meet like-minded individuals who are big supporters of the cause," Osgood said with a nod of farewell.

"Yeah, whatever," Basil said, but he had a half-smile as he said it, so Clara reckoned he liked her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I got feels in my strange little crack!fic.

Clara opened the door to her flat, placed her keys down, and removed her bag, excited by what she had learned and eager to talk to the Doctor, already starting a conversation, "Hey, Doctor. Sorry I'm late. I looked at the IMAX stuff, and I think the 1:30 showing would do quite nicely. There's a sweets shop nearby, and I thought you might be getting tired of just plain sugar, so maybe we could get you something else. I think it’s one of those posh shops that lets you try a bit before you buy, so we could get a bunch of free samples. Don't make yourself sick, though..."

Clara trailed off as she turned to the coffee table, smiling brightly, only to find it empty.

"Doctor?" Clara asked, but there was no response.

Clara rushed over to the coffee table, lifting up books and a tissue box, looking under and around things, but the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. She got down on her hands and knees, looking under the table, the love seat and the side table with increasing panic, as there was no sign of him.

Oh, God. She'd managed to kill him. She had no idea how, but she'd managed to kill him. If she could find the body, she could of course replant him, but he would still know she'd gotten him killed. She could picture it, him looking up at her with big eyes asking plaintively, 'Why did you kill me, Clara?'

Clara's mind flashed to every living thing she'd ever been responsible for as she began panicking about the whole situation. The fish she'd killed after forgetting to feed it over a bank holiday weekend. That class gerbil that had died on her turn to take care of it, even though Miss Curtis had said it wasn't her fault and that he had died of old age. That bonsai plant she'd got in a white elephant that she had somehow mismanaged even though those things were supposed to be impossible to kill. And Mittens. Her father had apologized endlessly to her for running the cat over when she was seven, but what if she was somehow responsible? What if she had somehow run over the cat herself?! What if--

Suddenly, Clara heard a clattering noise from the kitchen. She made her way over there and witnessed the carnage inside. Her hand mixer was on the floor, smashed with its insides exposed, and bits of it missing. On the counter, her blender was knocked over, the bottom pulled off and, disturbingly, the blades gone. But the worst bit of all was the toaster. It was in ruins, split in half, insides strewn about, coils flopping out, bread crumbs everywhere.

From behind the wreck of the toaster, the Doctor slunk out, looking terribly guilty.

"Hello, Clara," he said slowly. "How was your day at your employment? My, you're home early!"

"I'm two hours late," Clara said, tone unnaturally even, fists balled.

"Well," the Doctor said. "I can't see the clock on the microwave from here, in my defense."

"You need to improve your defense. And quickly. How the hell did you manage all this?!"

"I found string," the Doctor said, gesturing to a rather elaborate pulley system he had constructed to get from the floor to the counter, as though the natural result of finding string was this whole situation.

"What the fuck did you do to the toaster? I know you're afraid of it, but was that really necessary? What was your thought process? Can you explain it to me? Did you look at it and think, 'Yes, this is the natural enemy of my people. I must destroy it to reassert myself as the true apex predator?'!"

"That would be silly," the Doctor scoffed. "I made a thing."

"What thing?" Clara asked.

The Doctor removed something that looked like a metal wand from his coat pocket.

"I don't know," he said gleefully, "but it's sonic!"

At that, the Doctor flicked the thing, a little green light appeared at the tip, and it made a whirring sound.

Clara made a frustrated noise and stalked towards him. The Doctor tried to skitter away, but Clara was faster than him, snatched him up, and clutched him to her chest, "I thought you were dead."

"Why would you think a stupid thing like that?" the Doctor asked. "And what are we doing? Why are we doing this? Are you one of _those_ _people_? You're not allowed to stick me into orifices."

"I'm hugging you, you dolt. Now give me three more seconds of my thank-my-lucky-stars-you're-not-dead hug, and don't you bloody dare count the seconds out loud."

Roughly three seconds passed before the Doctor began squirming in her grasp, tiny hands pushing her away.

Clara placed him on her shoulder—no way was she letting him back on the counter—and contemplated scolding him. Perhaps the hug was punishment enough? Whatever. “Did you hear anything I was talking about in the other room when you were hiding?”

“I wasn’t hiding,” the Doctor began. “I was—alright, I was hiding. And yes, I heard a bit. What’s this about candy?”

“Thought you might like that part,” Clara said smirking. “I met another Twelve today, and he likes food other than just plain sugar, so I figured—“

“You met another Twelve?” the Doctor said, an edge of panic in his voice. “Why would you do that? Don’t you like me? Am I not likable enough? Why would you need two Twelve’s? I’m your Twelve!”

“Whoa, calm down,” Clara said, thinking up a quick lie. “It was just a chance meeting. I went to a coffee place after work and a woman there happened to have one. I got to talking with both her and her Twelve, that’s it. Although, her Twelve did seem sort of eager to meet you.”

“I’ll fight him to the death,” the Doctor said with no small measure of ferocity.

“Alright, okay. No meetings. Gotcha,” Clara responded. “Do you really think I’m going to chuck you in the bin and get another Twelve?”

“Why would I think that?” the Doctor asked in a tone that indicated that he did think that very much indeed. “I mean it’s not like there’s a bunch of us on store shelves, all hoping to be purchased and planted. It’s not like loads of people think the Twelve’s are annoying or the Tiny’s are a stupid idea or—“

“Hey,” Clara said, gently taking him off her shoulder so she could look him in the eyes. “It’s okay! I’m not going to just throw you away, alright?”

“You’ve only had me for a week,” the Doctor pointed out. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I don’t,” Clara said. “Mostly. Okay, so, maybe sometimes I do. But this is a promise I _will_ keep. Honestly, I’ve become kind of obsessed with you lot. You’re my hobby.”

“Don’t stick me in orifices,” the Doctor said, waving his arms about like he was in a karate movie, about to judo chop his way out of any offending orifices.

Clara laughed at him, “I’m not going to stick you in orifices!”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “Alright. But I’m watching you.”

“Watch away,” Clara said, then frowned. “Hold on a tick—you said that a bunch of Tiny’s were waiting in stores, hoping to be purchased and planted. Do you lot, I mean, when you’re in those pods…are you aware? Can you feel things?”

“I never said that,” the Doctor said quickly. His eyes had glazed over a bit.

“No you didn’t say that, but I’m asking you a question.”

“I answered your question,” the Doctor replied, his words rushing together. “I never said that.”

“Are you an alien?” Clara blurted out, hoping that maybe she could short-circuit whatever made him go squirrelly when questions were asked.

“Why would you think that?” the Doctor asked, his eyes wide, looking guiltier than when she’d caught him with the remains of the toaster. And answering a question with a question? Terrible way to tell a lie.

“Because I do. Answer the question. Do as you’re told. Are you an alien?”

“That’s a crazy thing to think. You watch too much telly,” the Doctor said, but he’d sort of grabbed onto her thumb and was trying to hide himself behind it.

“None of these things are answering my questions,” Clara said. “Are you not capable of answering this question?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk about it?” the Doctor replied. “Did you ever think of that?”

“But I want you to talk about it,” Clara said. Ugh, might as well take out the big guns. Go full emotional manipulation. “I thought we were friends?”

The Doctor slumped against her thumb, his face looking devastated. Clara immediately regretted her decision.

“I can’t,” the Doctor said into the pad of her thumb. “I can’t…confirm or deny.”

“Sorry,” Clara said, gently rubbing his back with one of her fingers. “Sorry, that was out of line of me. Do you want to watch me pre-order the tickets for the penguin movie?”

“Yes,” the Doctor mumbled, still talking to her thumb.

“Did you do anything else today other than make the thing and destroy my kitchen?” Clara asked, holding her hand out awkwardly as she walked back into the living room with him still clutching her thumb

“No,” the Doctor said, this time not mumbling into her thumb, but he still wasn’t making eye contact. “I don’t think you appreciate how hard I worked on that. I mean the pulley alone! I had to keep trying and retrying to lasso the drawer handle.”

“No, no, it was very impressive,” Clara said, placing him down next to her on the couch and pulling out her phone. “I just wanted to know if you’d done anything else.”

“Did you teach anything good to any of the stupid little humans?”

“I think I might have convinced a girl to read _Hamlet_ ,” Clara mused. “But other than that, not really, no.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor said, watching as she fiddled with her phone. “That’s good I suppose. I think that play’s rubbish, though. _Julius Caesar_ is better.”

“Hold on, I just have to mark this down on my calendar app,” Clara said, sticking out her tongue like she was thinking, tone playful. “Ah yes, here—today was the day that you were wrong. Got it. That’s a memory to keep for posterity.”

The Doctor made a haughty noise, “English teachers. They all think they’re right about literature. Did you buy the bloody tickets?”

“Yes,” Clara said, and then, “Oi! If you want up on my shoulder, don’t try to climb up my sleeve! Just ask.”

“Please miss, can I sit on your shoulder?” the Doctor said, laying the sarcasm on thick.

“Not with that tone, you can’t,” Clara replied.

The Doctor proceeded to resume his climb up her sleeve, and she let him, hoping the exertion would be enough to deter him from that little stunt again, knowing that it wouldn’t. God, she’d never let a student get away with half as much as she let the Doctor do. Of course students weren’t generally five inches tall, subject to human rights violations and attendant self-esteem problems. Well, at least not mostly.

“I was thinking today about buying you an iPad,” Clara said, flipping her phone over in her hands a couple of times distractedly. “That might solve some of your boredom problems. It’ll be a bit of a tight squeeze in the budget, but I’m sure I could save up enough if I put the money away.”

“You’d save loads if you stopped wearing different outfits every day,” the Doctor said. It sounded like he thought he was genuinely being helpful.

“Doesn’t actually work like that,” Clara said. “Especially when you’re a woman. Not everyone can get away with the same tiny set of clothes every day, I’m afraid.”

“If I do get an iPad,” the Doctor said, “I’m going to start a document dedicated to detailing the list of things that you humans do that make no logical sense at all.”

“I’ll make sure to set some time aside to read that very closely.”

“Really?”

“No.”

This made them both laugh, but Clara was still feeling awkward. “Hey, I know you can’t talk about things, right? And I’m sorry I asked you about them and that it made you uncomfortable, but can I just say a few things? You won’t have to respond. You can just listen.”

“I—I guess so,” the Doctor said, voice uncertain. He had no idea where she was going with this.

“There’s something really off about how you lot are treated. Not just the Twelve’s, but all the Tiny’s as well. It’s not fair, and it’s not right, and I will do anything in my power to stop it. I’ve met some people who think similarly, and they’re going to help too. And I know you’re worried that you might get caught in the crossfire with all this, but I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise. I’m going to make sure that you and all your quirky little brethren have safe, meaningful lives, alright?” Clara let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she finished speaking.

For a long moment, there was silence, and Clara briefly worried that she’d upset him again. But then she felt the Doctor moving on her shoulder and pressing himself against her.

“Are you hugging my neck?” Clara asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” the Doctor said, his voice thick with some unnamable emotion. “Hugging is one of those illogical things humans do. This isn’t a hug. I’m just resting my body here. With my arms held out.”

“Alright,” Clara said softly. “Thanks for the not-hug.”

~~

“Do you know why I like penguins?” the Doctor asked, swimming in a package of Millions. “It’s because they can’t fly. But they don’t care they can’t fly. They can swim, and some of them have even figured out how to slide down hills and splash into the water. And they can walk really long distances and go to different places, so the whole not-flying thing doesn’t bother them at all. And that’s why I like penguins.”

Clara felt as though she had read that, in essay form, from one of her students once, but she didn’t let that thought escape her mouth. They were sitting at a table outside a café, Clara nursing a cup of tea, the Doctor burying himself in just one of the many sweets they had finished buying at the sweet shop, and both of them chatting absent-mindedly about the movie they had watched. It was a nice day, sunny and bright, and she still felt kind of guilty for always leaving him cooped up in her flat, so she was in no rush to get home.

“Would you like to fly?” Clara asked.

“Wouldn’t you?” the Doctor replied, face genuinely puzzled as though he had never thought anyone might _not_ want to fly.

He had a fair point, Clara thought. “Yeah, I think I would like to fly. But you ride on my shoulders, and you’re quite tiny. Isn’t that a bit like flying?”

“I suppose it is,” the Doctor replied. “But I can’t put my arms out on either side of me and go ‘wheeee!’ or I might fall. And if you can’t put your arms out and go ‘wheeee!’ then it’s not really flying, is it?”

“Is that the rule then?” Clara asked. “You’re the science-y one. You must have read a book on aerodynamics. Is that how you know you’re flying?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said, gnawing on a Millions. “That is definitely the rule.”

“Good to know,” Clara nodded, stealing some of his Millions, pausing to consider whether it was worth it to eat something that he’d literally been wallowing in, and then deciding that she really didn’t care. It was a show of solidarity for the Tiny cause. She was eating and living amongst the proletariat. Or she just really wanted sweets. One or the other.

“Why did you use the past tense?” the Doctor asked, swatting her hand away, arms flapping.

“What?” Clara asked. It wasn’t a conversation avoiding tactic; she really had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

“That first time we had a conversation. You wanted to travel, but then you didn’t, or rather you do, but it won’t happen.”

“Oh,” Clara frowned. She’d interrogated him yesterday, still felt guilty about that, and realized it would be unfair to stonewall him completely. She didn’t have an excuse like weird psychic conditioning for not answering his questions. In comparison to his deal, the excuse of ‘it makes me feel sad,’ seemed terribly lame. “This is going to sound mad, but I think the universe doesn’t want me to travel.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “You’re right. It sounds mad. Carry on.”

“Since as far back as I can remember, all I wanted to do was travel. I’d read all these books, come up with lists of places to see. I made itineraries for imaginary trips, Doctor. Notebooks full of them. It was amazing,” Clara smiled happily at the memory. “So, when I got older, before I went to uni, I planned a gap year. More itineraries now, but this time for real. And then…my mum died. Everything was a bit terrible for a while, and it hit my dad really hard, and me really hard too, if I’m honest, so before I knew it, my gap year had been eaten up by grieving, and I just pushed on to uni anyway.”

“That’s—“ the Doctor began.

“Not done,” Clara sighed. “So, towards the end of uni, I started saving up. Big post-graduation trip, yeah? There’s time between when school ends and when my trip can begin, so a friend of the family lets me stay at her place for the two weeks, so I don’t have to worry about getting a flat or staying with _Linda_. And while I’m staying there…she died. The family friend died. And her husband, well he worked a lot. And her kids. Christ. When I looked into their eyes, all I could see was myself. I kept staying there—a whole year looking after those kids. And between the non-refundable tickets, and me needing to find a flat afterwards, there just wasn’t enough money left, so I put it off again.”

“Alright, but—“ the Doctor tried.

“Still not done,” Clara mumbled. She was having a hard time looking at the Doctor at this point. “So, then I met this man. This wonderful, gorgeous, too-good-for-me man. And he was a teacher too, and he knew I wanted to travel, and he loved me very much, so he planned us a trip over the summer holidays. Paris. Terribly romantic. A few weeks before classes ended, he got run over by a car. The end.”

The Doctor looked at her wide-eyed, and then, with an outstretched hand, offered her a Millions. Clara accepted it, recognizing it for the gesture of comfort it was.

“The worst part is,” Clara said, looking at the Millions like it was a foreign thing rather than a piece of candy. “When I was cleaning out his stuff, I found the engagement ring.”

And now, nearly two years later, here Clara sat in a café, pouring her heart out to an action-figure sized bloke swimming in a bunch of sweets. This was exactly the way she’d planned out her life when she was little.

“I think…” the Doctor began hesitantly. “I think that. I mean, I know…I know it seems like the preponderance of evidence indicates that the universe doesn’t want you to travel—“

“Shouldn’t have brought this up with you,” Clara said, trying to brush away a tear as discretely as possible. “It’s not your fault, you’re just not very good with emotions.”

“But _maybe_ the universe just didn’t want you to travel then,” the Doctor finished, his voice fierce, tone adamant. “Maybe you missed those trips because there was a bigger trip. Or because you had to do something else. Maybe it was something as stupid as convincing a girl to read _Hamlet_ , but sometimes the little things that seem stupid are the most important, like planting a tiny man or helping out a deceased friend’s children.”

Clara looked at him, couldn’t help giving him a watery smile. “Am I getting spiritual advice from an alien?”

“You’re getting cosmic advice from someone who is stupidly, secretly an optimist. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks,” Clara said. “Sorry for getting mopey.”

“’S’alright,” the Doctor replied. “It’s the least I can do. Can we talk about penguins some more?”

“Definitely,” Clara replied. “The way they waddle cracks me up.”

“Hey! I think they have a quiet dignity about them,” the Doctor said, for some reason offended on the penguins’ behalf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I worry that I write Clara too neurotic, that maybe I'm projecting, but then I think back to Time of the Doctor and realize that she is probably exactly as neurotic as I write her, but better at keeping all that neuroses inside and not outside.
> 
> Thanks so much for the strong, bewilderingly enthusiastic reaction to this fic.


	4. Chapter 4

Monday morning. Clara Oswald: super spy. Very subtle. Plan ready to put in action.

Courtney winked at her when she walked into the classroom.

Okay, maybe not so subtle.

Be chill. Write on the board. Execute lesson plan. Wait for Courtney to instigate whatever she needed to instigate to make her Twelve a distraction. She _knew_ Courtney could instigate a distraction.

Maybe something subtle? Who knew? Courtney was inventive, but Clara hadn’t seen any sign of her Twelve yet.

Clara paused for breath midway through explaining what she had planned for the day, and in the silence, a Scottish voice yelled, “Fucking wanker!”

The entire class burst into laughter.

Okay. So maybe Courtney’s genius plan was to get her Twelve to swear as loudly as he possibly could at her. It lacked elegance, but it was certainly effective.

“Woods,” Clara said with a sigh. “I know that came from you.”

“No, Miss. I don’t sound like that at all,” Courtney said with a smirk. More laughter.

“Stand up. Turn out your pockets,” Clara said curtly, motioning Courtney up.

Courtney made a face, stood up as slowly as humanly possible, and emptied everything out of her pockets, _except_ the Twelve. Her movements were exacting, drawing the whole thing out, sulkily laying her cell phone, some coins, even bits of lint, before she placed the offending Tiny. Clara would’ve been impressed with Courtney’s acting job if they both hadn’t played out this exact scene before at a time when it was more…improvised.

Finally, with the Twelve on the desk, he stared up at Clara and popped his collar, “Hello, teach.”

Clara realized, with dawning horror, that he was _playacting._ He was relishing this. The Twelve had been prepped for adventure and attention, and he was going to milk every moment of it.

The bloody _cheek_.

Clara did her best to ignore him, “Courtney, you are aware that Tiny’s aren’t allowed on school grounds—“

“Miss—“ Courtney began.

“Not a question, Courtney,” Clara interrupted. “I _know_ you’re aware of this. And yet, you still brought him. You know I’m going to have to confiscate him.”

The Twelve blew a raspberry at Clara. Clara picked him up rather more forcibly than was strictly necessary, and he began caterwauling wildly.

“Put me down!” he shouted. “How dare you?!”

“Miss, please, you can’t take him,” Courtney protested, although her distressed tone was undermined a bit by the smile she was attempting to suppress on her face from watching the Twelve’s antics. “You’ll starve him! He’ll get lonely!”

“He’ll be fine,” Clara said dismissively, raising her voice to try to blot out the sound of the overly dramatic Twelve. “You can have him back at the end of the day, and frankly, you’re lucky I’m not giving you a harsher punishment.”

The Twelve would not be silenced, it seemed, squirming in Clara’s hand all the way back to the desk, “I have been disrespected! Subject to the slings and arrows of most outrageous fortune! Horrible witch! Get thee to a nunnery!”

“I see you’ve read _Hamlet_ , Courtney,” Clara said dryly. “I’m ever so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Miss,” Courtney said, unable to suppress her grin any longer.

Clara smiled a little back at Courtney before opening the bottom drawer in the desk. Inside she’d placed some candy, water, and her phone, with a post-it on the phone which said, ‘Do what you like as long as you keep it muted.’ She put the Twelve softly down at the drawer, where, out of sight, he gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Clara rolled her eyes in response.

Clara closed the drawer gently, locked it, and stood up.

“Anyone else have anything they’d like to share with the class?” Clara asked sternly.

At the silence, she continued on with the lesson.

~~

Lunchtime rolled round, and Clara returned to the desk, unlocked it, and peeked inside.

“Having fun?” she asked the Twelve.

“Loads,” the Twelve said, but he seemed to mean it genuinely.

Clara tilted her head and gently took her phone from his grasp. “What the hell level of _Candy Crush_ even is this?”

“I can’t help it if you’re no good at that stupid game,” the Twelve sneered.

 “The stupid game that you’ve apparently been playing for hours?” Clara asked, holding her phone up for emphasis.

The Twelve blushed, “I said it was stupid. I didn’t say it wasn’t fun.”

“Right,” Clara said, slouching back in her chair and looking at him appraisingly. “I had some questions to ask. But I feel like I know the answer to most of them already.”

“You seem pretty stupid,” the Twelve said as though he was stating facts, “So maybe you should ask them anyway, in case I can help.”

“What’s your name?” Clara asked, because that was a good one to start with.

“Oh, that’s easy,” the Twelve said. “I’m Disco von Funkenstein.”

Clara burst out laughing. She had not prepared herself for such a response, and though she was obviously being rude, it was still too late to stop.

Disco von Funkenstein frowned impressively, “Yeah, well, what’s your name, then?”

“Clara,” she answered.

“That’s a stupid name,” Disco replied. She had a feeling that this was the response she would have received even if she had told him her name was Disco von Funkenstein Is Awesome.

“Where do you lot come up with these names?” Clara asked. That question wasn’t on her mental inventory, but it seemed like a fair enough question anyway.

“I don’t know,” Disco said thoughtfully. “We just do. It’s like I woke up from the worst nap one day, and I sat up, and I put on some clothes, and I ate a bit, and I thought, ‘Oh, yes. My name is Disco von Funkenstein. How silly of me to have forgotten.’”

“Weird,” Clara said.

“Right?” Disco agreed. Then he scowled. “Your questions have been child’s play. Courtney told me this was going to be fun. The fun portions seems really far away at the moment. We seem to be firmly entrenched in the you’re-boring-me portion.”

“Well, we’re probably about to jump into the you’re-upsetting-me-portion,” Clara frowned. “Are you an alien?”

Disco froze thoroughly. It was like his entire mind and body locked up in one moment. It reminded Clara strongly of a video she once saw with fainting goats. Thankfully, Disco didn’t fall over like the goats had. Instead, he shook himself all over, and said, “That’s a rubbish question.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Clara said. “The next one’s pretty naff too: when you’re in the boxes and the pods, do you feel things? Hear things? Dream them?”

“You were right,” Disco said, not freezing up this time, but careful to avoid eye contact. “Completely naff question.”

“Are you happy with your lot in life?”

Disco actually reflected on this one, “It’s pretty good. Courtney’s interesting, and we have a lot of Tumblr followers. She’s much nicer than the other girl who had me before. That girl kept me in a box under her bed half the time. It was terrible. But then Courtney bought me for a tenner, and ever since then everything’s been coming up Disco!”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” Clara said, “Although it’s nice to know Courtney treats you kindly. I meant do you like how the Tiny’s are treated. Does it ever bother you that you’re treated like toys or some weird commodities, seen as lesser in some ways than even a cat or a dog?”

“That’s a very stupid question,” Disco replied, and the expression on his face momentarily frightened her. “Of course it bothers me. What am I supposed to do about it, though? Got any suggestions, human? I’m all ears.”

“I was thinking a revolution,” Clara said quietly, although she now felt very unsure. The Tiny’s problems sometimes seemed insurmountably big.

“Who’s going to help?”

“I was thinking, well, me,” Clara explained.

“You do realize that you’re very small for an adult human, and also that there’s only one of you?” Disco said, speaking to her in the same tone one would use to talk to a very thick child.

“I have some friends,” Clara said. “If what I’ve been reading is true, I suspect I have rather a lot of friends, all of whom are willing to help.”

Disco looked at her, “You’re a very strange human--”

“Increasingly so every day,” Clara sighed.

“But I like your ideas,” Disco finished. “I’d like a revolution. Would you give me matches if I joined your revolution?”

“I was thinking a peaceful revolution,” Clara said slowly. “A bloodless revolution.”

“Fire cauterizes all wounds. There would be no blood.”

“That is goddamn terrifying,” Clara boggled at him.

“Isn’t it just?” Disco grinned. “But you know. Eggs. Omelets. Revolution.”

“Fair point,” Clara hummed. “If I need anything burnt, you will be the first person I turn to.”

“Excellent,” Disco said, and then he clapped his hands together. “Now, can I play more _Candy Crush_?”

“Yeah, go on, then,” Clara said, placing her phone back in the drawer. “I’ll make sure you’re back with Courtney at the end of the day.”

~~

Later, after classes had ended, after Courtney and Disco had been reunited, after Clara had popped by her flat and checked that the Doctor hadn’t done too much damage and informed him she was going shopping, Clara found herself in the middle of Tesco’s, leaning against an empty shopping trolley, staring blankly at a large display of Twelve’s. Dozens of smiling, winking cartoon faces looked back at her, but all she could think about was the creepy, filmy little pods within. Were they all in there? Could they hear everything that was going on outside their boxes? Were they being driven mad by the endless hours of nothing, cardboard their only companions, hoping and praying that someone would pick up their package and take them to the counter?

Clara briefly had a mad thought about shoving all of them into her trolley, buying as many of them as she could afford, and then buying more, putting it all on her credit card. She could fill her apartment with potted people, create a cadre of Tiny’s. They’d probably only fight each other to the death, but perhaps a noble death in gladiatorial combat was, on the balance, better than whatever mummified existence the Tiny’s had now.

Clara cleared her throat, crept closer to the display, then very quietly said, “Hey.”

Clara double- and triple-checked that no one was watching her, but everyone seemed busy with their shopping.

“Look,” Clara began, whispering. “I don’t know if you guys can hear me, but I have a rather terrible feeling that you might be able to. And, I just wanted to say, in case you _can_ hear me, that I’ve got your backs. I’m trying to do something about this. And so, if you get a bit lonely in those boxes, or you’re feeling a bit sad, then just...just remember that Clara Oswald is out here, and she’s trying to help.”

Clara paused, “Or Clara Oswald has gone completely mad and will soon be safely locked up in a mental institution. One or the other. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.”

Clara sighed to herself, stepped away from the display, took a firm hold of her shopping trolley, and headed over to the bakery section of the store, only for her phone to start ringing.

It was bloody Linda. That was a quick ignore, but a call from Linda usually meant, well, it usually meant that her life was going to get emotionally complicated, and she was already feeling emotionally complicated enough, so this called for a quick detour to the wines.

Like clockwork, a minute or two after Linda’s call had bounced to voicemail, her Dad was ringing her.

One ring, two ring, and then _just_ before the third ring, “Dad! Hey!”

“Clara,” her dad said, and she could hear the frown in his voice. “You’ve got to stop doing that?”

“Doing what?” Clara asked, pure innocence.

“Ignoring Linda’s phone calls and then taking mine,” her father said sternly.

“Dad, you’re being paranoid. Was that Linda who called before? I thought it was you. I’m _literally_ in the middle of Tesco’s now. My hands were too full to answer earlier, and you’re lucky I had my hands free to answer just now.”

“Oh, yeah?” her father asked, skeptical. “What’re you buying?”

“Cereal,” Clara replied, trying to decide between the red or the white wine. “I got the wheat kind. I feel so adult. It’s terrible.”

This made her father laugh a little, and she knew she’d managed to diffuse the situation, “And is being an adult the reason you never seem to find time to pop ‘round? We’ve not seen you since Christmas.”

“Honestly, yeah,” Clara lied, deciding it might be both a red _and_ white sort of day. “I do call. But school’s just been mad. You know I love spending time with you and Linda.”

“You really mean that?” her father asked, sounding hopeful.

“’Course, yeah,” Clara said, wincing a little at the hopeful tone her dad had adopted, and at her lie. She began steering out of the wine aisle lest she make any more poor decisions. Besides, she really did need cereal. Probably not the wheat kind though; she could feed the Doctor the marshmallows, so it might be worth it to get the _Lucky Charms_.

“It’s just your Gran doesn’t like her, and that can make things a bit tense.”

“Don’t be silly. Gran likes Linda just fine.”

“Clara, your grandmother has literally stared me in the face and said, ‘I don’t like your new wife.’”

“Yeah, well, Gran’s just a funny old sort, you know?” Clara said, tipping the _Lucky Charms_ into the basket, “That’s just how she shows her affection.”

“I guess,” her father replied slowly, sounding increasingly convinced by the argument, and Clara, not for the first time, began wondering if her dad wasn’t just a tiny bit thick.

“It _is_ ,” Clara reaffirmed. “I’m certain of it.”

“Well, I didn’t intend to call you to chat about Linda,” her father said after a brief pause. “I actually intended to ask you ‘round for Sunday roast next week. You, me, Gran, and Linda. A right proper Oswald gathering.”

“Sounds amazing,” Clara said, and it did, truly, because a plan for vengeance was forming in her head. “Can’t wait!”

“I—“ Clara’s father paused. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Clara said. “I’m all caught up on grading. Nothing crazy’s on. I’d love to come.”

“Usually I have to twist your arm for these things,” her father said, sounding genuinely confused.

“I really feel like you’re imagining things again, Dad,” Clara laughed.

“Probably,” her father admitted reluctantly..

Okay, yeah. Tiny bit thick.

“See you Sunday then,” Clara said. “Still shopping. Bit busy! Okay! Bye-bye.”

Clara rang off and smiled giddily to herself. She spent the rest of the shopping trip whistling to herself and with a spring in her step. Ultimately, she could be a very petty woman, but sometimes being petty was just _delightful_.

~~

“Doctor!” Clara called, shifting shopping bags around as she entered her flat. “We need to have a bit of a chat. Also, I got you some _Lucky Charms_.”

Clara spotted the Doctor on the couch, happily reading the copy of _A Brief History of Time_ that she had finally found. He turned his head towards her.

“Why do we need a chat? What have I done?”

“Nothing,” Clara scolded, juggling shopping bags some more in order to offer the Doctor her hand so she could place him on her shoulder, letting them talk while she put the shopping away. “Stop being so paranoid.”

“Can’t help it,” the Doctor pouted. “It’s in my nature. Says it in that Owner’s Manual you _still_ haven’t read.”

“Ah, but see, I was going to do the reading, but then I left it in my bag, and then I left my bag at my mate’s, and then my mate’s baby sister was sick on it, and then my mate’s cat ate it,” Clara heaved an exaggerated sigh, taking a page from her students.

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” the Doctor grumbled. “I’m suddenly very eager for this chat, now.”

“We’re going ‘round to my Dad’s this Sunday, and I need you to do me a huge favor,” Clara said, beginning to sort the groceries.

“I make no promises,” the Doctor replied cagily. “But let’s hear it.”

“I need you to be on your absolute worst behavior,” Clara said.

There was a long period of silence during which Clara methodically began placing groceries on shelves.

“Is this a trick? A trap, maybe?” the Doctor asked slowly, and she could practically hear the way he was glaring at her just from his tone. “Are you trying to test me to see if I’ve learned about the magic of friendship and the importance of love and how it has brightened my dark life?”

“Oh, god no,” Clara said, scrunching up her face in disgust. “If I ever become that mawkish, you have my permission to put me out of my misery. I just need you to be absolutely horrible.”

“Why?” the Doctor asked. “I thought you loved your father.”

“More than almost anything in the world,” Clara said breezily, feeling the Doctor shiver as she popped open the freezer to put away some perishables. “But I bloody hate my step-mother. She’s the one who thought you were a good present.”

“Hey! I’m a terrific present,” the Doctor protested.

“Really?” Clara asked. “Think about it a bit. If some woman—who for all intents and purposes, replaced your beloved mother in your father’s life—got you a Tiny Twelve for Christmas, you’d just be super thrilled by it?”

The Doctor rolled that thought around in his mind. “No, actually. That’s completely pants.”

“My point exactly,” Clara said. “So, I need you to make her pay. You have turned out to be absolutely terrific. I enjoy having you about. You enjoy having me about—I really, really hope. But Linda doesn’t need to know that, and more importantly _Linda must not enjoy having you about_!”

“What about your dad, though? Won’t he be there too?”

“I love my dad,” Clara admitted. “But he started voting Tory, and he married Linda. And in the end, don’t we all have to face up to the consequences of our actions?”

Clara could feel the Doctor nodding from his perch on her shoulder, “Beautifully said.”

“One thing, though,” Clara cautioned. “And it is a very important thing: my gran. My gran will be there, and she is a flawless, amazing human being. If you do one thing that will even maybe _potentially_ insult my Gran, then I promise you, I will snap you in two, take the pieces of your tiny broken body, place them on toothpicks, and place the impaled bits out on my porch for the neighborhood birds to peck, all as a warning, to all who may not know, that Clara Oswald shouldn’t be fucked with. Got it?”

“Your violent poetic imagery has conveyed your message very clearly.”

“Excellent,” said Clara. “Now, do you have any ideas about how you might completely wreck everything this Sunday?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Tomorrow there will be two chapters, as one is kind of short, but I'm going to stick to the chapter-a-day thing. I've already got a strange amount of time and energy invested into this strange fic. I could not tell you why. I've written up to most of chapter 7, so you have that to look forward to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late. Two chapters like I promised, but it's late because I've been so busy writing other parts of this. Almost done, which is quite a relief. This is the first long-form WIP I'll ever have finished. This chapter's quite short, but it's a bit of a farce, and it didn't necessarily fit tonally with the rest, so there you have it.

“Ready?” Clara whispered to the Doctor, hand perched to knock on the door to the flat Linda and her father shared.

“Yep,” the Doctor said.

“Nervous?”

“Yep.”

“Me too,” Clara admitted. “It’s okay, though. Let’s go fuck shit up.”

Clara suspected the Doctor might have said, “Huzzah” in reply, but the noise of her knocking on the door sort of covered up any other sound, and for the Doctor’s sake, she was going to pretend that he hadn’t said something as stupid as that.

“Clara!” Linda crooned as she answered the door. “So good to see you.”

“Linda!” Clara said, making sure her tone was exactly as sickly sweet as the other woman’s. “I brought a cake.”

“You didn’t bake it, I hope?” Linda said, wrinkling her nose a little. “Not that your baking’s horrible. It’s quite improved. Just wouldn’t want to put you out, you see?”

“No, don’t worry,” Clara said, keeping the grin pasted on her face. “I didn’t bake it. I bought it at the store, just like you like to do.”

They both smiled at each passive-aggressively for a moment, just to make sure the barbs had sunk in, and then Linda moved in for the mandatory hover-hand hug and air-kiss combo, seemingly spotted the Doctor on Clara’s shoulder for the first time, and screamed bloody murder.

“Linda?” Clara heard her dad call from inside. “Are you alright?”

“What the _hell_ is that?” Linda asked, one hand covering her mouth in horror and the other pointing at the Doctor.

Clara was all faux-concern, “Oh! You—Oh, no! I thought you’d remember him. He was your Christmas present to me.”

Linda had gone completely silent, which was a new and quite pleasing development.

The Doctor broke the silence by sniffing haughtily, and telling Linda, “You smell funny.”

“Chanel no. 5, if I’m not mistaken,” Clara commented, failing to suppress a smirk, “But Doctor, what did I tell you about your manners?”

“Pffft,” the Doctor said, waving a hand so dramatically that even Clara could see it from her periphery. “She’s fine. Aren’t you fine, Liz?”

“Is everything alright?” Clara’s father appeared in the doorway, noticed the Doctor, and asked. “Oh, hello! Look, Linda, it’s the funny little thing you got her.”

Linda nodded mutely, as Clara made introductions. “Dad, Linda: this is the Doctor.”

“I’m Dave,” Clara’s father said quite politely, giving an awkward little wave.

“Wait, hold on a second,” the Doctor said suddenly. “I’m confused. I’m trying to wrap my head around all this. Am I to understand that one of you is biologically related to her? Because she’s fairly cute and you both are just terrifically ugly.”

The look on her father’s face served, in Clara’s mind, as suitable atonement for voting for Cameron.

“Um,” Dave said, putting on a brave smile and letting out an awkward chuckle. “Well. Everyone always said she took after her mum, but yeah, pretty sure she’s mine.”

“I am _so,_ so sorry,” Clara said offering a plaintive smile. “I—I thought it’d be nice to bring him, seeing as Linda did get him for me, but he’s so, well…he has a unique personality. I can’t always control what he says, but really he has his charms.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Clara’s dad said quickly. “No, it’s fine! Why don’t you two come in? We’re being terribly rude to your Gran.”

“Yeah, of course,” Clara said, ‘accidentally’ elbow-checking Linda, who was still staring in mute horror, on the way through the door.

“What was all that fuss?” Clara’s Gran asked as they all walked back into the sitting room. “Was Linda being dramatic again?”

“Gran!” Clara said, walking over to hug her tightly and potentially stave off another fight between Gran and Linda.

“Um, Clara brought a, um, friend,” Dave said, gesturing at the Doctor.

“Oh, hello.” Clara’s grandmother waved a few fingers at the Doctor, who took one, bowed deeply, and kissed it.

“Ma’am,” the Doctor said in a silky smooth voice.

Gran giggled, “Well, isn’t he a sweet little thing?”

“I have good taste in people,” the Doctor said in a low enough voice for Clara to suspect that only she and her grandmother had heard him.

Clara careened her neck to make eye contact with the Doctor, raising an eyebrow. The Doctor raised an eyebrow right back. Clara would never have thought him capable of charm, but if anyone deserved his charm, it was her grandmother. He’d seemingly let the woman in on their game, and Clara knew enough to know that her Gran would enjoy the show, so she gave the Doctor a smile and a wink in response. The Doctor smiled like the cat that had eaten the canary.

“Clara, dear,” Linda spoke up, and Clara was disappointed that the other woman had found her voice again. “You can put your cake over here, and we can find a suitable, um, _area_ for your pet.”

“I’m fine where I am, Lily,” the Doctor said.

“He likes sitting on my shoulder,” Clara added. “It’s a tactically sound viewpoint.”

“Is he…dangerous?” Linda asked, looking at the Doctor like he was roadkill.

“ _Lily_ , he’s five inches tall,” Gran said, suddenly smiling broadly. “The greatest danger he poses is as a choking hazard. And since you only _behave_ like a child—“

“Are you quite alright?” Linda interrupted. “My name’s Linda. I do hope you’re not going senile.”

“Linda, I understand everything that’s going on in this room far more than you think, I assure you,” Gran replied.

“How’s um, how’s things at the school?” Dave asked, loitering between the kitchen and the living room like a very confused dog, watching Clara set the cake down.

“Oh, it’s been great,” Clara said with a nod. “I really feel like I’m getting through to some of the students.”

“Dennis,” the Doctor said suddenly. He’d been lying flat on his stomach on Clara’s shoulder, nearly falling off, and exaggeratedly eying the other food as Clara had sat the cake down. “Why’ve you not got proper food?”

“Dave,” Clara’s father corrected.

“No, my name’s Doctor,” the Doctor shot back. “Close, though. Anyhow, Dennis, you’ve not got anything properly edible here.”

“Are you one of those vegetarians?” Dave asked with considerable disdain. “Clara, you’ve not gone mad like that, have you?”

“Dad,” Clara huffed. “I’m fine. It’s just that the Doctor isn’t human, is he? He’s got special dietary needs.”

“What does he eat?” Clara’s father asked with a frown.

“Worms and mice, mainly,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “Although beetles will do in a pinch.”

“He’s great at keeping out the pests ‘round the flat,” Clara enthused.

“I’m a terrifyingly mighty hunter,” the Doctor agreed. Clara nearly killed herself with the coughing fit she had to fake to cover the laughter that line instigated.

“Are you alright, dear?” Linda asked. “He’s not got diseases has he?”

“No, no. He’s harmless, really. Stop worrying, Linda. It’s just, you know how schools are. Lots of catching stuff.”

“Are you sure _you’re_ alright?” the Doctor asked Linda, leaning towards her a little bit and making Linda flinch away in a manner that frankly warmed Clara’s heart. “You look a little diseased yourself. Pale. Peaky.”

“Perhaps you _should_ sit down, Linda,” Dave said, looking at her with some concern.

“Or we could start our meal,” Linda said manically. “You know, I’m sure everyone’s hungry. And I bet Clara’s terribly busy and really just humoring all of us by being here. Wouldn’t want to waste her time, you know?”

“Really, Linda. I am fine. Cleared out my whole schedule just for family time,” Clara said with a smile.

“I’m not hungry,” Gran said, glancing at Clara as she spoke. “Could do with something to wet the old whistle, though.”

“Ooh!” the Doctor said with mock glee, pointing off into a corner in the kitchen. “I think I spotted a mouse. If I catch it, would anyone like to join me in the meal?”

Linda jumped terribly, and then spoke shrilly, “I just remembered we have a thing.”

“What?” Dave asked staring at her in confusion. “What thing?”

“The thing, Dave! The thing!” Linda spat, suddenly quite emphatic.

Dave seemed quite frightened by Linda’s behavior, and so nodded in agreement in order to get her to stop, “Yes, _that_ thing. Of course.”

“So, if we want to be having our meal, we should definitely start now, so that Dave and I won’t be late to the thing.”

“Linda, I rather get the feeling that you’re trying to drive us away,” Gran said, a hurt tone to her words that Clara rather strongly suspected was put on.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Linda laughed wildly. “Why would I do that?”

“If you were a rotten old crone, you’d probably do exactly that,” the Doctor said, stroking his chin in mock contemplation. “And of course, making up a social engagement is usually an excellent way to get out of awkward situations. But we’re having so much fun that I can’t actually imagine you’d ever see this situation as awkward, Leslie.”

“Linda!” Linda corrected.

“No,” the Doctor said patiently. “I’m called the Doctor. It’s really not that hard.”

“Let’s just all sit down,” Dave suggested. “I think we’d feel better if we sat down and had something to eat.”

“Yes,” Linda agreed, nodding so hard she looked like a bobble head.

“Can I sit on your shoulder?” the Doctor asked Gran suddenly.

“I would love that,” Gran said with a smile, offering the Doctor her hand to climb onto. “I have a feeling the view is going to be quite lovely.”

~~

“We are _amazing_ ,” the Doctor said later, once he and Clara were bundled into a cab and on their way home.

“ _So_ amazing,” Clara agreed.

“Did you see Linda’s face when I started swimming in the gravy bowl?”

“Yes! And what did you even say that made Gran laugh that hard?”

“Only the truth,” the Doctor replied, starting to nibble on a finger thoughtfully. “I thought I might have gone too far when I bit your father.”

“No, no. It was worth it just to watch Linda franticly trying to ‘disinfect’ his hand. You might’ve gone too far crawling up her sock, though. I’m not sure how you survived.”

“Bravely. After I escaped, that was when your Gran slipped me her phone number,” the Doctor said, untucking one of his trouser legs from his sock and shaking the leg until a rolled up bit of paper was completely out.

“What are you intentions with my grandmother?” Clara asked with mock seriousness.

“I would very much like to call her and talk with her about how most people are idiots.”

“I suppose I could permit you to do that,” Clara replied with faux-solemnity, taking the bit of paper and gently tapping the Doctor on the head with it. “God, that was more fun than I’ve had in a long time.”

“Hah,” the Doctor scoffed. “That was more fun than I’ve _ever_ had. Beat that.”

Clara’s smile dimmed into something more melancholy, as the truth of those words sunk in.

“I can’t beat that,” Clara admitted softly, pulling out her phone and pulling up the email Osgood had sent her about the UNIT meetings, “But I can try.”


	6. Chapter 6

Clara hadn’t known what to expect at the UNIT meeting. She sort of suspected everyone would be dressed like Osgood, or it’d be a lot of weirdos in trench coats, or maybe a lot of people who looked like they were spies.

But no, everyone looked pretty normal. The youngest members appeared to be in their late teens, the oldest a sweet looking old lady sitting in the corner knitting something. Demographically, it looked like the average group of people you’d find in the Underground.

Clara spotted Osgood in the crowd and weaved her way towards the woman, who motioned her over and indicated that she’d saved her a seat.

“Hey,” Clara said, as she sat down. “I have to say, this is not what I expected.”

“Yeah, I reckon you expected everyone would look as dorky as me,” Osgood replied cheerfully. “But no. Everyone’s fairly normal.”

Clara opened and closed her mouth, couldn’t think of anything to say in response to Osgood’s remark, and just pressed on with the conversation, “I expected there’d be Tiny’s here.”

“Oh, no,” said Osgood, shaking her head. “It’s best to keep them separated, generally. They get very possessive around people.”

“But I’m here,” a muffled voice from Osgood’s coat pocket said. “Hello, Clara.”

“Basil,” Osgood whispered. “You know you’re not supposed to be here. I can’t sneak you in if you tell everyone you’re being snuck in.”

“About as subtle as a fart in a lift, isn’t he?” Clara asked, suppressing a smile. “And I rather think that for the Tiny’s, people are seen as very valuable commodities. I’ve made quite a few discoveries recently that are rather troubling.”

Clara looked around to see if anyone was within earshot of their conversation and jumped rather badly when she noticed that the chair next to her that she thought was empty was being occupied by a Tiny Eleven in a cowboy hat, his legs swinging off the edge of it, a pensive look on his face.

“I thought you said there were no Tiny’s here,” Clara said, pointing to the small man.

“Oh, that’s just Craig,” Osgood said. “He just started coming here one day. We tried to kick him out, of course, but he’d just find a way back in. We don’t know how he found out about our meetings, we strongly suspect he doesn’t have a companion, and he doesn’t really talk. So, eventually, we just let him do what he wanted.”

Clara leaned down closer to Craig, “Hello. _Do_ you have a companion?”

“Hello,” Craig replied. “Why does everyone always want to know that?”

“I guess people are just worried about you, I suppose,” Clara said with a shrug.

“Oh,” Craig replied, nibbling on his lip. “That’s a bit weird. No, I don’t have a companion.”

“This is going to sound a bit impolite,” Clara said, “but how do you manage? And also, where did you get the cowboy hat?”

“There’s actually a few of us who don’t have companions,” Craig said. “Oh, but I’ve probably said too much. Stole the hat, by the way. Nicked it right off a doll in a shop. He never saw it coming.”

“Do you want some sweets?” Clara asked.

“That’s a bit patronizing,” Craig said, looking at her disdainfully.

“Sorry,” Clara offered. “Navigating social situations like this is a bit tough at the moment. Don’t really have the script.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Craig said thoughtfully. “Can I go back to moping quietly again?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Clara replied solemnly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you. Thank you for your time.”

Osgood elbowed Clara in the ribs, “That is the most he has ever said to anyone. Pretty sure he likes you.”

“I am much less sure he likes me, but I’ll take your word for it,” Clara spoke. “Now, as I was saying…”

Clara explained what she’d learned from talking with the various Tiny Twelve’s to Osgood (“Aliens,” Basil whispered softly at appropriate intervals), and Osgood’s face grew more and more troubled.

“If your suspicions are true, then this is terrible,” Osgood said.

“Yeah, but why has it taken this long to figure out?” Clara huffed, her frustration evident.

“No one ever really talks to us,” Basil said. “Much less more than one of us.”

Clara gaped, although this was obviously lost on Basil as he still remained in Osgood’s coat pocket, “You lot have been around for what? 50 years or more? And no one ever thought to just have a bit of a sit-down with you?”

“Clara, do you talk to your hoover? Started a conversation with your laptop recently?” Basil asked.

“I might do if my hoover called me a pudding brain,” Clara spat angrily, attracting the attention of a few people sitting nearby. Realizing that to any outside observer it must look as though she was yelling at Osgood’s breasts, Clara gave a placating smile, sat up straighter, and then lowered her volume quite a bit. “And actually, I say all sorts of foul things to my computer when it’s being weird. It’s had plenty of openings to respond back to me.”

Basil had gone quiet.

Osgood spoke up again, taking up where Basil had left off. “Any ideas on how to proceed?”

“Yes,” Clara said. “I’ve crafted a strategic plan.”

Osgood tilted her head at her. “You’re a very strange woman.”

“Your jumper has question marks on it,” Clara shot back, then blushed. “Sorry, didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did,” Osgood said with a sigh, “but I’m used to it. So this plan—“

But Osgood never managed to finish her sentence, because a woman had stepped up to the podium, fiddling with the microphone, and quieting everyone down.

Clara knew that this was not the sort of meeting for her when it began with a reading of the minutes from the last meeting, everything following Robert’s Rules of Order to the tee. More people stepped up to the podium to give reports about various initiatives, some of which bore more than a passing resemblance to some arts and crafts projects she’d seen for Tiny’s on Pinterest. Then, once the reports were done, a few people got up and spoke. These speeches weren’t exactly fiery polemics. In fact, many of the speakers spoke about the Tiny’s as though they were beloved dogs or invalids in a terribly overwrought Victorian novel. Clara didn’t know which was the greater danger: that she would have an apoplectic stroke or that she would pass out from boredom. Likely both.

“Now, the work we do here is very important,” a man with an impressively thick, dark moustache and equally impressive, albeit strangely out-of-date, sideburns, said, his tone self-congratulatory in the way that rich-people at a charity dinner spoke, “but I also know that none of us here exactly wants to storm the Bastille.”

There was a pause. Clara realized it was a pause for laughter. That was a punchline. _It was a bleeding punchline._

Something in Clara snapped, likely the barrier between her mouth and brain, tenuous as it usually was.

“I do,” Clara said rather loudly.

Though the hall had been quiet before, now it was deathly silent. Not even the squeak of chairs could be heard. It was almost as though everyone in the room had stopped breathing.

“I beg your pardon?” the speaker spluttered.

“Sorry, you can’t have it,” Clara said, standing up now, emboldened. “It was very presumptuous of you, you see, to say that no one here wanted to storm the Bastille. I want to storm the Bastille, I want to free the prisoners, and if you’ll excuse me for mixing my French Revolutionary metaphors, I’m pretty damn close to singing songs from _Les Mis_.”

“Clara, no!” Osgood said, grabbing at Clara’s arm to try to get her to sit down.

“Clara, yes!” Basil crowed, with unconcealed delight.

“I know someone who, right now, would love to light the torches if you only gave him the matches, and I’m pretty sure Osgood here could make us some nifty pitchforks,” said Clara, at this point having given up trying to catch her mouth. Might as well let the bull wreck the China shop once it was in there. Maximize the insurance pay off.

Clara was very shocked when she heard the first smattering of applause. This was followed by more applause and a few whistles, one of the whistles coming from the direction of Osgood’s coat pocket.

“Get _out_ ,” the man at the podium shouted, peaking the mic as he did so. He had gone very red in the face, and now he very much resembled a hairy tomato. “ _Any_ of you who agree with this nonsense! Get out!"

Clara was relieved to find that Osgood was standing with her now, along with a dozen or so other people.

As she was turning to go, she heard a voice say, “Hey! Can I get a ride?”

She turned to see Craig waving his arms at her.

“Oh, sure,” Clara said cheerfully, offering him her hand. There was a bit of a rush, and she didn’t really have time to think about the logistics of it, so she just sort of cupped Craig in her hands. When she finally made it out the door and the rush of cold hit her, Craig levered himself up a bit on her cupped fingers, and, like he was on the Titanic, spread his arms out and went, “Wheeee!”

Clara almost burst into tears, but at the last moment it turned into hysterical laughter.

Outside, the people who had walked out of the meeting were milling about, chatting. Clara couldn't help but preen a little as people clapped her on the back and introduced themselves.

"I'm so glad someone told those self-important dickheads where to stick it," a man said, offering his hand to shake. He had an American accent and looked as though someone had tried to genetically engineer the ideal ‘boy-next-door’ and succeeded. "I'm Jack Harness."

"How do you keep all those teeth in that one mouth?" Clara asked before she could stop herself. She didn't take his hand; she just sort of helplessly waved Craig at him.

"You'd be surprised what I could do with my mouth," Jack said with a wink.

"Alright, then," Clara said, unsure whether to roll her eyes or blush, but definitely sure she wanted to move the conversation along.

"Don't get me wrong, that was a nice speech, but what are you going to do about it?" a young man with close cropped hair asked.

"She has a strategic plan," Osgood offered.

"I do," Clara confirmed, a bit distracted as Craig had started to shiver in her hands, "but it's a bit cold, isn't it? Maybe we should find somewhere indoors to talk?"

"Where though?" the same young man as before asked. "We were kicked out of the meeting hall, and there are quite a few of us, too many for a pub probably."

"Osgood's house is bloody huge," Basil said from within his pocket hiding place, and everyone started.

Osgood was blushing suddenly, making little shushing noises.

"It's true!" Basil continued, unaware of Osgood's discomfort, although he probably wouldn't have stopped even if he could see it. "Her father met aliens, so the government gave him loads of hush money, so she's got a big posh place all to herself."

"It's okay if you don't want to have us all at yours," Clara said softly, "You don't have to listen to him. We'll find another place."

"No, he's right," Osgood sighed. "It makes the most sense, logically."

Osgood gave them all directions to her place and everyone split up to find their way over.

Craig elected, meanwhile, to make himself comfortable in Clara's bag.

~~

"Alright," Clara said, pacing back and forth in front of a small whiteboard that had been covered with equations not a half hour ago. Clara was fiddling with the dry erase marker in her hands. She shouldn't feel this uncomfortable; this whole set up wasn't much different from teaching. But, the adrenaline from her earlier heroics had drained away, and the realization that Clara was trying to start a national conspiracy over what were essentially talking action figures was sinking in, draining her confidence.

A bunch of rapt faces were turned towards her, eyes following her pacing as they sat comfortably in the ridiculously large sitting room in what Basil insisted on calling 'Chez Alien Hush Money.' Clara desperately wanted to get the real story behind that, but the whole thing made Osgood squrim so much that Clara felt she would likely never in good conscience be able to ask.

"Your pacing is making me travel sick," Craig said from her shoulder, and Clara nearly swore in surprise. She'd entirely forgotten he was there.

"Sorry," Clara said sheepishly, placing Craig down on the lip of the dry erase board, next to the eraser. Impulsively, she bent towards Craig and whispered, "Tell me I can't do this."

"What? Why?" Craig asked.

"Because the surest way to get me to succeed at something is to tell me I can't do it."

"Alright," Craig said with a dopey grin. "There's no way you can do this."

"Now to prove you wrong," Clara responded with a cheeky grin, before spinning around to her audience.

"Okay," Clara said, clasping her hands together. "I've been talking to different Tiny's, and I've come to several concerning conclusions. Conclusion one: they're aliens ("Aliens!"). And I don't necessarily think they're here because the want to be, which isn't very nice at all. Conclusion two: I'm fairly sure they're aware in the pods and the boxes, waiting desperately to be let out. That is 'I have no mouth and I must scream' levels of upsetting. Conclusion three, and this is a corollary of conclusion two: humans are seen as a commodity amongst them. We're the only thing that can free them, even though there's a risk they'll be treated poorly. I reckon this is why they don't get along with each other. They're afraid another Tiny will be liked better, and they'll be binned. Craig, am I right in thinking that?"

Craig blinked at her a few times, squinted at her, then said, "Can I trust you?"

"Yes," Clara said fervently, and then she added softly. "Please."

Craig sighed. "Humans are very important, yes, and sometimes they're very fickle."

"Right. Thank you, Craig. You've been a big help." Clara took in a deep breath and then went on. "Conclusion four: many of the Tiny's would be in favor of changing their lot in life. Unfortunately, they don't really have the physical ability to do so, and a lot of them are fighting pretty hard around telepathic conditioning that doesn't let them ask for help or even really let then talk about some of the conclusions previously discussed. Conclusion five, then, is pretty obvious: it is a moral imperative that we stop this. I have suggestions on that, but I'd quite like something to drink and someone else to talk for a bit, maybe ask a few questions."

"Are you sure you're not crazy?" someone asked.

"Nope, but no one's keeping you here. Door's that way," Clara said gesturing as Osgoid went off to get her some water.

No one made a move to leave, which was quite reassuring.

"Everything you've said makes sense," Jack said. "Some of it I've been suspecting for a long time, but I guess I didn't want to admit it was likely real."

"Yeah, you've convinced me too," the same young man as before agreed with a nod.

"Thanks, um..."

"Rigsy," he offered.

"Canapés anyone?" Osgood asked, returning from the kitchen, a plate in one hand and a glass of water for Clara in the other. "I've also put the kettle on."

There was a general murmer that kicked up about how that was a lovely suggestion, yes, and the canapés tasted delicious, and tea would be marvelous, and everything went very British and polite for a bit, while Clara chugged her glass of water.

There was a bit of general chit-chatting for a while, tea was passed out, and then slowly everyone's attention turned back to Clara.

"Alright," Clara said, clearing her throat a little for effect. "Plan of action. First step is to find out more about TARDIS Int'l. Osgood and I have exhausted conventional means, so we have to get creative. Osgood, do you know anyone who can hack?"

"You think because I'm a geek that I'm friends with a hacker?" Osgood asked.

"Do you?" Clara pressed.

"Yeah," Osgood sighed. "She's over there."

A middle-aged black woman smiled at Clara, "Hello. I’m Jaq."

Clara smiled back at her, although privately she thought that two Jack-sounding names might get confusing, "What we need is to find out where the headquarters is. So, like IP tracking or something. I'm not really sure. I'll leave it to you. Once we have the location, well, chances are that things might take a turn for the illegal and/or violent, so if anyone's uncomfortable with that, they best take a pass."

"I have friends," Jack said. "Friends with a unique set of skills. And guns."

"You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?" Clara said. "Might be helpful, though. In the mean time, keep it holstered. Metaphorically and literally, thanks."

Jack gave his many-toothed grin, the one that Clara reckoned took him very far indeed, and Clara rolled her eyes, but also winked in response.

"Next step is a media blitz. I want this whole thing to be impossible to ignore. Social media too. Ruin people's Facebook walls. Plaster our message all around London."

"I think I can handle all that," Rigsy said with a grin.

"Yeah?" Clara smiled. "Go for it. Next thing is Tiny PR. If more people meet Tiny's, talk to them, it's going to become impossible for them to ignore the whole thing and think they're still toys. Basil: to YouTube! Start a vlog, and get some of your friends on the message board to do the same. And all of you? Introduce your Tiny's to people. I know some of you take them for outings, but that's not enough. Take them to work. Make them ubiquitous."

"Won't they start fighting?" Jaq asked.

"Not if we let then know that this is how it starts; this is how we're going to get them safe and free. I have some ideas about that of my own, that I'll be putting in place. Basil can put the word about on the message board as well, and I think if you talk to your Tiny's openly and honestly, you can get them to come around eventually. It's not as hard as you think."

"You're the Tiny Whisperer," Basil said, a measure of awe in his voice.

"Don't be daft," Clara chided. She then turned away from her audience, which was quite rude, but she had someone very important to talk to. "Now Craig. You have an essential job. I reckon you have friends, friends you don't want us to know about that you want to keep safe. And I suspect you were coming to the UNIT meetings to gather intelligence to protect those friends. I suspect your companion may have died or had to leave you and that you're doing your best for your new family now, to protect them, since you couldn't do that for your companion. And I know how that is; I really, really do. Please tell them, though. Tell your friends about my plans, let them make their own plans, or let them talk to me or the others. Would you do that?"

Craig looked at her, sadness in his eyes. "You really are the Tiny Whisperer."

Clara smiled. She had a feeling that was as close to a 'yes' as she would get from him and decided not to push it.

Clara turned back, suddenly feeling awkward in the silence of the room.

"So," she said, nervously. "I've just been bossing you lot around, no one has said anything, and it would be great if someone said something because frankly, the silence is killing me."

"No, that was an impressively solid plan," Jack said.

"Yeah. I reckon we can do all that easy," Rigsy agreed.

"I've already started vlogging," Basil said, gesturing at his iPhone.

"Oooo-kay." Clara said. "Um, if that's it, I best pop off. School starts early in the morning, and it is getting quite late. I'll write my mobile on the whiteboard. Text if you need anything, yeah?"

"School teacher," one of the audience members mumbled to another. "Knew it. You owe me a tenner."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, I am now taking prompts for one-shots in this AU. You can leave one in the comments or on my tumblr-- user name is resting-meme-face. You can see, now that this story is part of a series, and clicking on to the next part will get you to the prompt fills.

"And then they all started clapping?" Courtney asked, eyebrows raised in skepticism.

"Yeah," Clara said, trying not to squirm under the girl's gaze. She was supposed to be the intimidating one, damnit.

Courtney gnawed on the lollipop that was ostensibly the excuse for this secret-conversation-slash-telling-off. "Did Channing Tatum show up after that bit and take his kit off for you?"

"Courtney, don't make me actually punish you while I'm pretending to punish you," Clara said with a sigh.

"All I'm saying, Miss, is that if you put that on Tumblr, you'd get an awful lot of notes."

"Yeah, well, you can put it up there yourself. A free shit post; my treat."

"Did you just swear?" Courtney asked, bemused.

"Yes, and I don't secretly live in the school. Sorry to spoil the magic. Now pay attention."

"Alright, alright," Courtney agreed. "Back to the story."

Clara proceeded to summarize the rest of the night, then said, "And this is where you come in."

"Where exactly? I'm not seeing it."

"How many other students do you know that have Tiny's?"

"I probably know most all the ones in my year who have one," Courtney mused.

"Could you find out all the ones in the other years? How long would that take, do you think?"

"I dunno," Courtney said. "Probably would need until the Friday after next."

"Do it," Clara instructed, "and then have them all bring those Tiny's to class on Monday."

Courtney's eyes bulged. "What?"

"I said people should be introducing their Tiny's to people. I meant it. Plus, this will serve as a very visible act of protest."

"But Miss, we'll get in quite a lot of trouble."

"Think it through," Clara said. "I know you realize that I can't send a whole class full of students to the Headmaster's office. It's just not feasible. The same pricinciple applies here. Strength in numbers. Besides, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. I'll be bringing the Doctor as well."

"This is proper mad," Courtney said. "I'm in."

"Good. Remember to get everyone to tell their Tiny's exactly what's going on so there isn't a mutiny. And do try to convince them to be on their best behavior, as far as possible. I do want to get teaching done, even in the middle of a revolution. And in the meantime, feel free to go crazy on social media with this."

Courtney nodded eagerly, "Can do, Miss."

"Couple more things," Clara said. "Did you buy that copy of Pride and Prejudice used, or were you the one who dog-earred it?"

Courtney suddenly lost all her bravado and shrugged, "Disco likes reading with me."

"Your grades are really improving. Your last essay was fantastic."

"Shove off," Courtney said, clearly embarrassed, and then, belatedly realizing who she was talking to, she added, "Miss."

"Yeah, yeah, off you pop," Clara said, yanking the lollipop stick out of the girl's mouth for show, lest anyone think she was getting soft.

~~

"So?" Clara asked nervously.

The Doctor was sitting on the kitchen table, reading the message board discussion about Clara's plan on his new iPad. She probably shouldn't have bought the iPad for him. She really couldn't afford it, especially taking into account the fact that she might get the sack in the near future for pulling a stunt so mad that Courtney Woods thought it was a good idea.

She was terribly nervous about showing the Doctor her plans, her fingers drumming on the kitchen table as she watched him read. She was practically vibrating in her chair, but she'd run out of dishes to clean and food to alphabetize earlier, and yet he was still reading every page of what was, she realized too late, really quite a long thread.

God. What if he tried to stop her? She wasn't sure if she would deny him if he asked her to stop. She cared too much for him. She realized she'd abandon all the others who she had convinced to follow her wild plan, oblivious to their sacrifices (and Rigsy had already managed to get himself assigned to a work crew to clean off the rather fabulous pro-Tiny masterpieces he'd left around London), if he wanted her too.

The Doctor glanced up at her with the biggest grin on his face. He looked incredibly happy, in a way Clara had never seen before, a completely unguarded way.

"This is amazing," the Doctor said. "But why are you showing this to me now? I sense an ulterior motive. I don't like ulterior motives. Do you expect me to vlog? I refuse to vlog, but I wouldn't mind helping in other ways."

"You don't have to vlog," Clara sighed. "Believe me, Basil has vlogged enough for all of us combined, in perpetuity. He has a ridiculous amount of YouTube followers. He's huge with teenaged girls. No one is quite sure why."

"The sunglasses, probably," the Doctor said sagely. Clara made a note to herself to ask Osgood if she would be willing to make another pair, later.

"Maybe, but that's not why I showed you all this. Doctor, I'm about to do something incredibly stupid."

"I'm glad you're finally willing to admit such things. The first step to solving a problem is to admit you have a problem."

Clara decided to ignore that and press on. "You know how you've always wanted to come to school with me?"

The Doctor's eyes went wide, "Do you mean it?"

"Yeah," Clara laughed. "On Monday. If you want, mind. There's likely to be a lot of other Tiny's there, though."

"No, no, no," the Doctor said, waving a hand distractedly. "That's not important. Oh, I get to see you teach! And meet all sorts of little pudding brains! Could we get ice cream afterwards? I've never had ice cream, not even sure I want ice cream, but it sounds like something neat to do after a day at school."

"I can't promise ice cream afterwards," Clara warned. "Things might be a bit interesting afterwards. This whole thing might kick up a bit of a fuss."

"We're going to do this," the Doctor said happily. "Everything's kicking off! You and me, Clara. We're going to save the world."

"That's the plan, yeah," Clara agreed.

She didn't say that it was equally as likely she'd be sacked.

~~

It was working. Her plan was working. It wasn’t even Monday yet, and her big dumb plan was succeeding. People were asking questions about the Tiny’s. It was all over the news. Someone had brought it up in Parliament. People were concerned about this whole thing, and maybe just a little bit worried.

And it wasn’t just the UK. There was something going on in Japan that Clara didn’t entirely understand because Google Translate wasn’t terribly helpful, and Osgood and Basil had been Skyped in to talk on an American chat show.

She and the Doctor were watching the YouTube clip of their appearance now. Both Osgood and Basil had their own little windows for the chat, which was probably for the better as watching someone as enthusiastic as Basil try to hold court on someone’s shoulder might have not been as impressive for the cause as it could be. Someone, likely Osgood, had convinced Basil to forgo his normal hoody and sunglasses look for a red velvet suit jacket and a pair of tiny spectacles that looked suspiciously as though they were based off of Osgood’s own. Osgood herself looked quite dapper in a bowtie, bracers, and tweed jacket combo.

“They clean up nice, don’t they?” Clara asked.

“They’re certainly a sartorially interesting pair,” the Doctor said, sniffing a bit.

“Oh, shut it, you,” Clara said, giving him a tap between his shoulder blades. “Have you seen the lining of your jacket?”

“I love the lining of my jacket,” the Doctor huffed with a pout, spinning a bit so that there was a flash of red silk.

“So,” the American chat show host asked. “You’re a scientist, Miss Osgood?”

“We’re _both_ scientists,” Basil interrupted. “Or did you not check my CV?”

The chat show host blanched rather badly, “Oh, no, I, I’ll have my producer check that, yes. In the meantime, Miss Osgood, could you explain to us what you’ve discovered about the Tiny’s?”

“Well, it’s quite likely that they’re not of this world. Their biological composition is quite unique. They are also sentient, as you can see, and quite advanced. It’s frankly appalling that we’ve been treating these unique, wonderful individuals as nothing more than throwaway toys. Their biological processes are quite fascinating, really. As long as their corpus survives, they can be replanted. It’s nearly impossible for them to truly die, which makes this a greater tragedy. How many people flushed one down the loo like a dead goldfish, do you think?”

The chat show host looked distinctly uncomfortable, “But Miss Osgood, what would you say to people who would think it absurd that the Tiny’s could be extraterrestrial?”

“I’ve got this one,” Basil said. “Now, telepathic conditioning prevents me from saying we’re aliens. But I can say, with a great deal of certainty, that aliens are real. Now, what conclusion does that lead you too, Louise, if I may call you Louise.”

“Um, you may,” Louise said blinking. She had no response to Basil’s unique intensity, and instead went back to her script. “But let’s transition to talking less about the science of all this and talking more about the social aspect. Basil, I understand you’ve become something of an internet celebrity?”

“Thanks, Louise,” Basil said smiling expansively. “I don’t want to be immodest, but I do have quite a lot of YouTube followers. They’re all very intelligent, kind people who are interested in what I have to say, and interested in advocating for us Tiny’s.”

“You seem very charismatic, Mr. Basil,” Louise said, with a tone indicating that all of Basil’s substantial charisma was entirely wasted on her. “What content do you think you have that has gained you so many subscribers?”

“Oh, well, firstly, Louise, just Basil is fine,” he said. “And secondly, I think people appreciate the fact that I’m just honest. But not like, ‘I’m going to couch my hate in honesty,’ honest. Just good, old fashioned honesty about how fantastic David Duchovny is and how Piers Morgan is secretly a gorgon.”

Osgood and Louise’s eyes tripled in size. It was pretty clear that when Basil was prepped for this appearance, his conspiracy theories were not something that had been cleared with the producers.

“Well, that’s very interesting, yes,” Louise said. “I think that’s about all the time we have for this segment—“

“Piers Morgan. Piers Gorgon. It’s hiding in plain sight,” Basil interjected.

“Thank you so much Ms. Osgood, Basil, for your time,” Louise said. “Next up, do grapes cause cancer? The answer may surprise you.”

Before the clip ended and the screen cut out, Basil shaped his hands into little guns and softly said, “Pew, pew.”

“Did he just do the finger guns?” the Doctor asked, turning to Clara.

“Yeah, he just did the finger guns,” Clara affirmed. “And according to Osgood, he got in a huge Twitter war with Piers Morgan after that.”

“You really wouldn’t think Piers Morgan would rise to that bait,” the Doctor said, and then paused. “Actually, you would totally think he would rise to that bait, but I felt like I needed to have something to say in this conversation to keep the rhythm.”

“Fair,” Clara said nodding solemnly. “Still, apparently after this, that same network ran a poll asking whether viewers thought the Tiny’s should be afforded more rights and freedoms and if TARDIS Int’l should be investigated for wrongdoing, and 73% agreed with that statement, up from 17% earlier in the week. So we’ve definitely got the ‘Slightly-Afraid-Grapes-Might-Kill-Them’ demographic behind us.”

“And Rigsy got that two page spread in _The Guardian_ calling him ‘the Banksy for the under-five-inches set,’” the Doctor said.

“I’ve actually got quite lucky managing to stay out of the limelight,” Clara reflected. “So, obviously, now we have to march into a busy secondary school in the middle of London tomorrow and start a youth revolt.”

“You know, it would’ve been terrible if some boring, narrow-minded pudding brain had planted me instead of you.”

“Aww,” Clara said, nudging him gently with her elbow and accidentally almost tipping him over. “Love you too, Doctor.”


	8. Chapter 8

This whole thing could end before it was even started, Clara reflected on Monday morning. Courtney had promised she had contacted everyone with a Tiny in the school and insured their participation, but it was just as likely that students could balk at the idea at the last moment. Clara knew, realistically, that she should plan for some rate of attrition based on parents or other adults spotting some of the children with Tiny’s and confiscating them, as well. But she’d also done some research, and if the Coal Hill students were reflective of greater marketing trends, there should be enough market penetration to cause a real disturbance. As long as more than one student had a Tiny per classroom, the whole movement should be okay.

“Alright, Oswald,” Clara said to herself in the mirror. “Today is a big day. You’ve been waiting for this your whole life.”

“Really?” the Doctor said, loitering around the sink. “That’s terribly bizarre.”

“I’ve been waiting my whole life to do something to make a difference in the world,” Clara snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at the Doctor. “This is applicable. Now shut your gob while I do my positive self-talk.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and held his hands up in a placating gesture.

“You are strong, brave, and if we’re being honest, really quite attractive.”

The Doctor scoffed.

“Your father taught you everything he knew about football, and you could probably put a five-inch man into the back of the net from a reasonably impressive distance,” Clara added, staring pointedly at the Doctor.

“Alright, alright,” the Doctor sighed. “Shutting up, now.”

“Good choice,” Clara said, then resumed staring her reflection in the eyes. “You have overcome everything life has thrown at you, so far. No matter how this ends up at the end of today, you’ll push through. And you did the right thing, so there’s that to keep in mind, no matter what. You’re in charge. You can do this.”

Clara set her jaw, “Alright, I’m done. Anything to add Doctor?”

“You could do the finger guns,” the Doctor suggested, failing to keep the mocking grin off his face.

“Not going to do the finger guns, you prat,” Clara said, offering him a hand to jump up onto. “Basil did enough finger guns for both of us, I think.”

~~

As soon as she walked into the schoolyard, she knew it had worked. There was a buzzing in the air, but more importantly, she could see some of the other teachers flitting about, an edge of panic on their faces as they tried to stop Tiny disturbance after Tiny disturbance, failing, of course, as there were just too many of them

“Miss Oswald—Clara,” one of the teacher’s said, his voice about two octaves higher than it normally was, clearly trying to control himself. “If you could be so kind as to help me?”

Clara pretended she hadn’t heard and walked inside.

The Doctor tugged on her earlobe and whispered, “There certainly are a lot of them, aren’t there?”

“Tiny’s or schoolchildren?” Clara asked out of the side of her mouth, walking straight to the classroom, no distractions.

“Both,” the Doctor said. “Are you going to be able to get any teaching done?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Clara replied. “But Disco said he instructed all the Tiny’s on proper etiquette quite thoroughly.”

“Do you really trust someone named Disco to know anything about etiquette?” the Doctor asked.

“Nope, but I don’t trust someone named ‘Doctor’ to know anything either, and you’ve managed to muddle through so far,” Clara said with a grin.

The Doctor tugged at her earlobe in consternation.

There remained quite a ruckus in the halls, but all the same the students in her first class filed in, and when the bell rang, everyone quieted down, and Clara found the class as attentive as usual (which, frequently, honestly, wasn’t that attentive, but what were you going to do?), although several additional pairs of tiny eyes were now on her.

Ten minutes into class, and it was still fairly normal. Fifteen minutes, and it was a little bit louder than normal, as some of the Tiny’s were scuttling around a bit, but everything was fine. Twenty minutes in, and there was a definite rhythm that had been settled into.

Outside the class, there was a fair bit more of doors opening and closing than was normal, a fair bit more talking, but Clara didn’t let that bother her, and it was only marginally distracting to the students and Tiny’s.

Thirty minutes in, one of the administrators burst into her classroom, glanced around, and then gave Clara a bewildered, helpless look.

“Are you,” the administrator asked breathlessly. “Do you…is there anything you need help with? Any, um, disciplinary problems? Interruptions?”

“Well, someone did just barge into my classroom unannounced,” Clara pointed out. There was some tittering in the classroom.

The administrator blinked in bewilderment, “You mean there’s not been any problems?”

“Not really, no. Peter’s been staring out the window the whole time, but he always does that, don’t you Peter?”

“Beautiful day outside, Miss,” Peter said, gesturing with a smile. Clara knew the boy well enough to not be picking on him, but to be able to make her point.

“It’s just,” the administrator sputtered, “in some of the other classes, we’ve had to make a lot of referrals. Because of interruptions.”

“Because of interruptions or because there were Tiny’s there?” Clara asked politely.

“That is an interruption,” the administrator said slowly. “Isn’t it?”

“Have the other teachers tried, I don’t know, teaching?” Clara offered.

Courtney snorted very loudly, and interjected, “Don’t know if some of them have _ever_ managed that.”

“Belay my bit about not having interruptions,” Clara said, staring pointedly at Courtney and raising an eyebrow. “Might need to take some disciplinary after all. However, I think you’ll find that if the teachers concern themselves less with the existence of some surplus pupils, they might be able to get things done.”

The administrator opened and closed his mouth a few times, finally offering up in a small voice, “I’ll float that suggestion.”

“Do,” Clara said with a overly benevolent smile, and begin gesturing for the administrator to leave.

The poor man backed out of the room slowly.

“Moooving on,” Clara said, and she did.

Next period went much the same, but outside had quieted down a bit. The period after that seemed positively normal.

Lunch period came, and Clara and the Doctor headed towards the staffroom, only for Clara to be intercepted by Courtney.

“Miss,” Courtney said, her face deadly serious. “Things have been alright in a lot of the classes after the first few periods, although some of the teachers still won’t stop having strops. But the real problem is that some of the students who got nabbed earlier have snitched on you.”

“Courtney, this is a school, not a crime drama,” Clara replied, trying to move past the other girl.

“Miss, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go to the staff room,” Courtney said, grabbing her arm. “It’s loud in there, and they caught me trying to case the joint and shooed me off, so I don’t know what’s going on in there.”

“Courtney, again, we are not the Mafioso. I am a schoolteacher. Please, relax.”

“You could be looking at some serious trouble, is all I’m saying,” Courtney explained.

Clara sighed, and looked at Courtney very seriously. “Did you ever think that maybe I expected this? That maybe I was prepared for this sort of thing to happen? You should concentrate on keeping yourself out of trouble, Courtney. Alright?”

Courtney stared at Clara wide-eyed, then nodded.

“We’re fucked,” the Doctor whispered into Clara’s ear.

“Maybe,” Clara agreed. “Let’s see, shall we?”

And Clara and the Doctor walked into the staff room, which was, indeed, quite loud. Unfortunately, as soon as Clara stepped foot inside, the whole place went quiet.

“Not a good sign,” the Doctor hissed.

Clara ignored the pointed silence, sat down at the closest table, pulled out the lunch she had brought, and began eating a sandwich as though nothing was wrong.

“Hello, Clara,” someone finally said.

“Hey, Charlie,” Clara replied with a smile.

“So, um,” a teacher named Denise began. “I didn’t know you were a politically minded person.”

“What do you mean?” Clara asked, face neutral.

“Just, well,” Denise waved a hand about abstractly. “There’s a rumor going about, that maybe, you know, you had something to do with all this.”

“I would think you’d know better than to think that my influence alone could convince as many of these kids as seem to be involved. I’d reckon only about a third of them consistently do the reading,” Clara laughed.

“It’s not been so bad,” a maths teacher named Mark spoke up. “They’re quite well-behaved if you don’t antagonize them.”

“As tend to be most people, you’ll find,” Clara added.

Mark nodded a bit, and gave a little smile. “One of them offered to solve an equation. He got it right, too. Quite bright.”

“A calculator can solve an equation, Mark,” an older teacher named Ben snapped. “And never in my life has anyone tried to convince me a calculator should have rights. A calculator has also never sworn at mean when I tried to remove it bodily from class.”

“They’re quite different from calculators!” Sharon, the drama teacher, protested. “One of them did a recitation. It was beautiful.”

“Ruddy speak-and-spells, then,” Kenneth, another teacher, responded.

That seemed to kick something off, and suddenly the staffroom was in shambles again, nothing but a mass of incoherent yelling. Clara ate her sandwich placidly, until someone spoke up.

“Oi! She’s got one!”

Adrian, another English teacher tried to grab the Doctor, who attempted to skitter around to the other side of Clara’s neck, almost falling down the back of her shirt instead.

Clara grabbed Ade’s lunging hand, and said to him, “You try to touch him again, I’ll snap your fingers off.”

The Doctor blew a raspberry at Ade, who had gone very pale indeed.

“She meant that,” Charlie whispered.

“She should do,” Sharon replied. “What was he going to do? Just throttle him?”

Before the arguing could kick up again, the same administrator from before came into the staffroom from the rear door that led to some of the offices, quailing as the collected faces of the faculty turned to him.

“Er,” he said. “Is Miss Oswald here? Oh, there she is. Just wanted to let you know the Head wants a word at the end of the day.”

The administrator rushed back where he came from, and all heads swiveled back to Clara.

“Oh dear,” Kenneth said sarcastically. “Looks like our little revolutionary has attracted some attention.”

“Good,” Mark responded fiercely.

Clara finished up her sandwich, brushed the crumbs off, and got the hell out of the staffroom as the arguing recommenced.

~~

“Why do I feel like we’re walking to our doom?” the Doctor asked. He had stolen a pen cap from someone and was holding it protectively like he might use it as a weapon.

The school day had ended, the afternoon sun was at such an angle that it threw long shadows along the halls creating a very dramatic atmosphere. It felt a bit like Clara was walking towards a gunfight showdown in a Wild West town.

“It’s all in your head,” Clara lied breezily.

“What’s the Head like?” the Doctor asked.

“Well, he’s never really liked me,” Clara admitted. “I mistook him for the Caretaker when I first met him.”

“Oh, brilliant,” the Doctor said.

“I was nervous,” Clara said defensively. “I still managed to recover enough to get him to hire me on.”

The Doctor snorted, “Right. Very impressive. So, how do you think this will go down?”

Clara had finally made it down the hall to the Head’s office, hovering at the door, adjusting the strap of her bag. “If he calls me ‘Clara’, I reckon we’re fine. If he starts off with ‘Miss Oswald,’ then we’ve got an uphill battle.”

“Uphill battles are winnable,” the Doctor reflected. “I like your optimism.”

“One of my many excellent qualities,” Clara agreed, before knocking on the door and then making her way in.

“Oh, Miss Oswald,” the Head said. The Doctor groaned on her shoulder. The Headmaster gestured towards the chair in front of his desk. “Thank you for coming. Please, sit down.”

Clara gave her most charming smile and primly sat on the chair offered to her, “Thank you, Mr. Armitage.”

The Doctor was squirming on her shoulder. She had a feeling that dealing with authority was not his strong suit. Destruction of authority, more like.

“Miss Oswald, I’ve heard some very disturbing rumors,” Mr. Armitage began, then paused when he noticed the Doctor. “Oh, my. It seems I can confirm at least one of them.”

“Mr. Armitage,” Clara said courteously, “This is the Doctor.”

Clara poked the Doctor gently. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Armitage,” the Doctor offered mechanically.

“I don’t recall,” Mr. Armitage began hesitantly, “Inviting anyone other than you to this conversation.”

“We’re kind of a packaged-deal, sir,” Clara replied, trying desperately to keep the irritation she felt out of her voice.

“I’m having a hard time understanding all this,” Mr. Armitage said, his smile growing more and more forced. “Is this some sort of protest? And are you responsible for the behavior of the students today?”

“Protest is a good word for it, I think. And the students are responsible for their own behavior, just as I am responsible for mine, and the Doctor, here, is responsible for his.”

“What, exactly, is the intended message of this protest?’

“The Tiny’s aren’t commodities. They’re people. I merely thought it would be nice if they were treated like people. Allowed to go where they wished. Allowed a variety of experiences.”

“They’re a distraction.”

“Really? I found them to be only about as distracting as the average student. Their behavior was rather good in my classes, and from what I understand—“

“Their mere _presence_ is a distraction,” the Head snapped. “I wouldn’t bring my cat to class, would I?”

“Did your cat successfully solve any maths problems today?” Clara asked politely. “Because I think you’ll find Mark thinks rather highly of the Tiny’s participation in the class.”

Mr. Armitage grit his teeth.

Clara continued on, “Doctor, did you have a nice time today?”

“Much better than binge-watching Netflix,” the Doctor affirmed. “Much more educational. I’d love to be allowed to attend school. Or hold a job.”

Clara motioned towards the Doctor and shrugged at Mr. Armitage.

There was a long moment of silence during which Mr. Armitage appeared to be looking everywhere but at Clara or the Doctor. He seemed to be making an attempt to control his temper, which, Clara thought, was a good sign. He didn’t necessarily _want_ to sack her. He just thought her very wayward and stubborn. She was very stubborn, though, so she really had no clue what Mr. Armitage would do when he realized she couldn’t be dissuaded. Hopefully she could persuade him.

“Miss Oswald, you’re a very spirited young woman--” Mr. Armitage began.

And that was it. Clara’s hand was forced. She was about to get herself sacked, more’s the pity, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Sir, I’m going to have to stop you right there. No one has ever said anything to me that had ‘you’re a very spirited young woman’ in the sentence that didn’t make me want to punch them in the nose. So, if you’ll do me the kindness of giving me the sack now without patronizing me, I’d very much appreciate it,” Clara said with a smile.

She could feel the Doctor’s bewildered stare on her, followed by a delighted burble of laughter from him.

She’d obviously wrong-footed Mr. Armitage, which was a bit unexpected. “I don’t want to _have_ to terminate your employment.”

“Then don’t.”

“But you’re wrong!” Mr. Armitage said. “You’re being very silly.”

“I’m liking these adjectives less and less,” Clara said to the Doctor. “Do you like these adjectives?”

“Not really, no,” the Doctor shook his head.

“Miss Oswald, on top of being unreasonable, you’re now being quite rude!”

“I think you’ll find I’ve been very reasonable, Mr. Armitage. I’ve carefully laid out my arguments, you’ve laid out yours, and it seems we’re at an impasse. Me not agreeing with your opinion isn’t unreasonable, it’s just something that happens in a debate.”

“This isn’t a debate! I am your superior, and if you want to remain employed at Coal Hill School, then I think you’re going to have to change your tune.”

“So, is this me being sacked, or…?” Clara asked, scrunching her face up in mock confusion.

“Yes,” Mr. Armitage spat. “This is you being sacked.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Armitage,” Clara said, standing up and offering her hand, which Mr. Armitage very pointedly did not take. “It’s been a pleasure working at Coal Hill. Sorry we couldn’t work this out.”

Mr. Armitage stood up, and turned his back to her. Clara walked out.

Frustratingly, when Clara made her way towards her motorbike, she found it surrounded by a group of students and Tiny’s, led, foremost, by Courtney.

“Did he give you the sack, Miss?” Courtney asked as soon as Clara was in earshot. She couldn’t see Disco, but knew he must be around somewhere.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave well enough alone, Courtney?” Clara asked with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Courtney admitted. “But when has that ever stopped me? Besides, we heard that you’d been called into the Head’s from some of the teachers, so I figured I’d stick ‘round to commiserate. It’s what I’d do for anyone else.”

Courtney gestured around to the other gathered students who nodded solemnly to affirm that yes, Courtney would stick behind any of them if they got in trouble with Mr. Armitage. It was very surreal when Clara realized that Courtney thought of her as not just her teacher, but as her friend.

Clara bit the inside of her lip, “In fairness, I may have pressed his hand a bit.”

“He called her ‘spirited,’ then ‘silly’ and ‘unreasonable,’” the Doctor filled in. “She told him that being called a ‘spirited young woman’ made her want to punch him in the nose.”

“Blokes!” one of the girls in the group huffed. “Nice one, Miss Oswald!” a boy added.

‘So, you’ve definitely been sacked, then?” Courtney asked with a frown.

“You don’t generally get your job back after you threaten violence, Courtney,” Clara said. “Just a bit of general life advice.”

“We’ll not stand for it,” Courtney said firmly, with a shake of her head.

“Courtney, don’t. Really. You’ve been doing so well in your classes. I told you I knew this might happen. Let me take the responsibility for this.”

“Why should we?” Courtney asked. “We’re going to bring our Tiny’s tomorrow, and the day after that, and on-and-on. You being sacked isn’t going to stop us, they’ll see. Besides, you’re like one of the only good teachers in this whole place. We’ll protest. It’s what you would do.”

“It is what you would do,” the Doctor pointed out.

“Yeah, well, do as I say, not as I do,” Clara suggested. “Seriously. I know where each of you lives. Cut this whole thing out, or I’ll come ‘round to each of yours and it’ll be Parent-Teacher night all over again.”

“You can’t do that, ma’am,” Peter said from somewhere in the back. “That’s harassment.”

“You should’ve never taught us to be politically active,” Courtney added.

“Yeah, alright, whatever, out of the way,” Clara waved angrily, dispersing the group to get to her bike. “If any of you’ve scratched the paint, I’ll have your head.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has fanart. I am not exaggerating when I say that this was something I always wanted to happen before I died, and so I can now check something off of my Bucket List. Thank you [Whifferdills](http://whifferdills.tumblr.com/) for doing [ this wonderful piece of fanart ](http://whifferdills.tumblr.com/post/138975240245/he-likes-sitting-on-my-shoulder-its-a)

Two days later found Clara sprawled on the couch, watching the evening news on the telly, drinking too much white wine, and with the Doctor running up and down the length of the couch excitedly as they chatted.

She was on the telly. She was watching herself on the telly. It was absolutely mad.

Her mobile rang.

“Hello,” Clara answered, not even bothering to check the caller ID. Her phone had been blowing up for the past two days, so there wasn’t a point. All she could really do was rush whoever it was off the phone or turn the thing off, but she couldn’t really turn the thing off as she was getting all sorts of calls from the former-UNIT members who had inexplicably agreed to her plan.

“Clara,” her father’s voice said down the other end of the line. He did not sound best pleased. “You’re on the telly.”

“Am I?” Clara asked. “I wouldn’t know. But I bet if I was, my hair would look _amazing_.”

There was a pause. “Clara, are you drunk?”

“Not yet, dad, but let me assure you that I am doing everything in my power to insure that that happens.”

“Clara, this isn’t funny. It says you’ve been sacked!”

“Yes, but the teacher’s union says it’s likely I’ll be reinstated. It’s well within my rights, apparently, to make such a protest, and besides, the students really like me and have apparently made it quite impossible to hold classes, which would normally bother me an awful lot, but I can’t help but find it terribly amusing at the moment.”

“Probably because you’re drunk, Clara. I really wish you would sober up and start talking sense. Linda and I are worried about you.”

“I highly doubt that,” Clara snorted, taking another large gulp of her wine.

“We are! Look, you took Danny’s death quite hard, and I can’t help but wonder if you’ve ever really gotten over it. You’re behaving quite recklessly, and it seems like your only friend is a five-inch-tall weirdo.”

“Don’t be thick,” Clara said rather bluntly. “I’m also quite good friends with a 15-year-old girl, a sci-fi geek, and _their_ five-inch-tall weirdos, thank you.”

“Can you at least try to stay off the telly? It’s been quite embarrassing for Linda.”

“Oh, dad, so sorry. I’m going to have to ring off; I’ve got a call on the other line that I’ve really got to take,” Clara said, ignoring her father’s spluttered protests. “Nice talking to you, as always. Love you lots, will try to phone tomorrow. Bye-bye! Oh, and you can tell Linda she can fuck off. ‘Ta.”

The Doctor crawled up onto Clara’s arm, fell off when Clara moved it to quaff some more wine, and then climbed back up.

Clara clicked over on the call.

“Hello, beautiful,” Jack Harness’ voice echoed down the line.

“Hello, yourself,” Clara purred. Or slurred. One of those, definitely.

“Are you drunk?” Jack asked, voice amused.

“Ugh,” Clara said, stretching, drinking more wine, and completely ignoring the Doctor’s protests that if she didn’t stop squirming he’d fall down the couch cushions. “Why do people keep asking me that tonight?”

“In my experience, if people keep asking you if you’re drunk, it’s probably because you’re drunk,” Jack offered.

“Not nearly drunk enough,” Clara sighed, placing her glass of wine down on the carpet next to the couch, and deciding to just let her arm loll there. “Any particular reason you rang?”

Jack hummed, “Yes, but I’m not sure that I shouldn’t wait until you’ve sobered up to share it with you.”

“Jack, I am prepared for anything you’d like to share with me,” Clara giggled.

The Doctor punched Clara in the neck, which did nothing.

“Alright,” Jack agreed, clearly still very amused. “But only because I think you wouldn’t stop trying to press me for the information if I didn’t, and I feel like that could be really tiresome. Jaq’s pretty confident she’s found the TARDIS HQ. I’ve started scouting the place, but I feel like it’d be a bit rude of me to not inform you and maybe ask for your permission, ma’am.”

“You’re Jack,” Clara pointed out, slowly, you know, in case he’d lost his mind.

“No,” Jack said a little frustrated. “The other Jaq.”

“OH! Hacker Jaq,” Clara said, and then she laughed. “I quite like that. Hacker Jaq. It’s like Cracker Jack. Funny.”

“Maybe you should try to sleep this off?” Jack suggested.

“I’m fine! You have my permission to be a creepy little sneaky spy with guns and such. Keep me posted. And please, keep calling me ma’am. Now, there’s another call on waiting, so I’m hanging up on you now.”

Clara actually looked at the caller ID this time before picking her glass of wine back up and switching over.

“What’s good, Osgood?” Clara asked, because obviously this was the peak of humor. All of mankind’s great discoveries had led them to that pun.

“Oh, hah,” Osgood said, with absolutely no amusement in her voice. “I have _never_ heard that one before. That is a triumph of originality.”

“Wow, harsh,” Clara said, managing to spill quite a bit of wine down her front. Clara frowned at the waste. “Thanks for not asking if I’m drunk, though.”

“As a scientist, I try to avoid asking questions I already know the answer of,” Osgood said cheerfully. “Saves time. You’re on telly.”

“Yes,” Clara said. “Oi! No, stop! Bad! I don’t even know what that’ll do to you, plus it tickles.”

“What’s going on?” Osgood asked, unsure and sounding concerned.

“The Doctor’s trying to lick wine off my neck” Clara groused.

“Um. What?”

“The Doctor,” Clara said, picking him up and trying to look crossly at him, managing only to look vaguely cross-eyed. “Oh, that must sound weird. He’s my Tiny, yeah?”

“You looked like you were having fun,” the Doctor protested. “Wanted to try some.”

“You’re not supposed to put them in orifices,” Osgood said, a slight hint of panic to her voice.

“Firstly,” Clara said angrily, refusing to let the Doctor go as he squirmed in her grasp. “I don’t want him in my orifices or the hypothetical orifices of anyone else. Secondly, he started it. Thirdly, I am not sure how a neck qualifies as an orifice. Throat, maybe, but still, the prepositions are all wrong. I wouldn’t say, ‘lick wine from my throat.’ Would probably say, ‘lick wine in my throat.’ And fourthly, do I always look that good, or is today a particularly attractive day?”

“What?” Osgood asked, completely confused.

“On the telly,” Clara explained.

“Oh,” Osgood said. “I, um, really couldn’t tell you. I mean, I’ve never done a systematic study, and you look pretty much like yourself on the screen, so, um, falling back on flattery, let’s just go with, ‘you always look that good,’ shall we?”

“Good answer,” Clara nodded with no small measure of seriousness.

“And he can probably metabolize the wine just fine. Much of it is sugar.”

“So share!” the Doctor growled.

“No,” Clara said. “I’m not going to have a tiny pissed man wandering around my flat. If you don’t behave, I’m going to stick you on a very high shelf and leave you there for a bit.”

“Wouldn’t be that high a shelf, now would it, smalls?” the Doctor smirked.

“I’m going to kill you,” Clara growled.

“I had a reason for this call,” Osgood said. “Do you mind if we got to it?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Clara said, slightly embarrassed. “Carry on.”

“Basil’s been running some numbers. He also has a daily report going that collects all the mentions of the Tiny’s the world over. Sort of trying to figure out how the whole thing is going, yeah?”

“H’okay,” Clara said, finishing her wine and trying not to fall off the couch as she leaned over to get the wine bottle for a refill, the Doctor holding on for dear life to a strand of her hair.

“Global support is overwhelmingly in favor of rights for the Tiny’s, although understandably, actual legislation is lagging a little behind. A lot of different countries are trying to conduct their own investigations into, well, everything, but particularly TARDIS Int’l. There’s talk of military action even.”

“Hm, I think Jack’s going to take some paramilitary action if we let him,” Clara said. She’d got the wine bottle, but was having trouble figuring out how to make the wine go in the glass without having the glass and the wine and herself all fall apart, so straight from the bottle it was.

“That might not be very wise,” Osgood said. “But it might end things rather quickly all the same.”

“Shit,” Clara said. “I didn’t even ask Hacker Jaq where she’d found the HQ.”

“Norfolk,” Osgood said.

“Seriously?” Clara asked.

“What’s wrong with Norfolk?”

“Doesn’t seem like the location of an international conspiracy, is all.”

“Good thing about Norfolk is that if Jack does go all Rambo, I have some military contacts I could call on to cover the whole thing up.”

“Christ, Osgood. What _do_ you do? Did your father really meet aliens?”

She could hear Osgood bristling over the phone, “I have some very high military clearances, and I really rather you not ask me anymore questions.”

“Alright,” Clara apologized. “Still, the whole thing bears thinking on. I don’t know what his skills are, but Jack seems very keen to clear this up on his own.”

“Jack seems very keen about a great many things,” Osgood pointed out.

“Yes, he does,” Clara said with a yawn, and another sip of wine. “On the other hand, I did want to storm the Bastille.”

“Seriously?” Osgood asked. “Literally?”

“YOLO,” Clara replied.

“I’m going to leave if you say that again,” the Doctor said.

Clara ignored the Doctor. “I’ve got yet _another_ call, Osgood. Email me if you need anything else, yeah?”

Osgood made a noise of agreement, and Clara picked up on the unfamiliar number.

“Hello,” a voice said. It was vaguely familiar. “Clara?”

“That’s me,” Clara affirmed. “And you are?”

“Oh, right,” the voice said, a little sadly. “It’s Craig.”

“Oh, Craig!” Clara said, excitedly, sitting up and knocking the Doctor off the couch. He landed, safely and rather charmingly, inside her wine glass. Clara tried not to giggle. “I’ve been hoping you’d call for days.”

“Really?” Craig asked, and it almost sounded like he was preening. The Tiny’s could be _so weird_ sometimes.

“Really!” Clara affirmed.

“Well, I had a chat with some of my _associates_ ,” Craig responded, and now, it seemed, he was on a roll because he sounded delighted to be seen as so important. “And myself and a few others fancy a bit of a chat. Was wondering if we could set a time to meet?”

“Absolutely,” Clara agreed, nodding her head enthusiastically, then feeling daft because Craig couldn’t see. “Not today though. I am completely pissed right now, and likely to be very hungover tomorrow. Friday at noon, then?”

“I can wrangle that,” Craig said. “Where?”

“You tell me,” Clara offered. “The logistics probably aren’t in your favor, I think.”

“There’s a park two blocks off your block of flats. How about there?”

Clara paused. “Have you been stalking me?”

“Oh, yes,” Craig affirmed. “You seem very nice.”

“Um, thanks,” Clara replied, suddenly having a strong desire to look in every nook and cranny and under every bush and rock that she passed. “Hey, I’ve got another call on this line, since apparently I am the girl of the hour. See you Friday?”

“I cannot wait,” Craig said sincerely.

Clara winked and shot finger guns in response, realized that Craig could not see either of these things, felt contrite over the finger guns and her behavior, and switched over the call.

“Hey, Gran,” she said. “Is this for me or the Doctor?”

“Both,” her grandmother said. “You were on the telly.”

“Yes, and I’m drunk,” Clara agreed. “Those seem to be the two most important facts about tonight, just thought I should let you know.”

“So, you really said that David should tell Linda to fuck off, then?”

“Oh, yes,” Clara affirmed.

“I always say the Oswald women should never drink,” her Gran said thoughtfully. “And yet, we persist.”

“Oh, yes,” Clara repeated.

“I’m quite proud of you, though,” Gran added.

Clara smiled, “Thanks, Gran. Really. That means a lot.”

“I do love you. You can hand me over to the Doctor now.”

“I must warn you,” Clara said, fishing the Doctor out of her wine glass. “He fell into my wine glass, and I might have overestimated how empty it was. He might be quite drunk.”

“Oh, how charming!” her grandmother cooed.

“That’s one word for it,” Clara said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exciting news: I finished the fic today, but of course you won’t get it until the chapter schedule comes around. I will be working on some of the requested one-shots in the meantime, and post those as they come. The fic has ended up being 12 chapters, plus an epilogue.

Clara woke up with a start and a pounding headache. She was on the couch, definitely well on the way to being massively hungover, and briefly, very confused. 6:00 AM the nearest clock said, and she realized that some part of her must have sub-consciously woke herself up, used to the habit of getting prepped for school.

But there was no school, though she really should force herself up to get an aspirin and a lot of water into her if she didn’t want to be completely useless for the rest of the day.

Her phone was wedged between her and the couch, and the Doctor was on her stomach, asleep and twitching. It appeared that he’d been sick on her shirt, staggered off a small distance, and then face-planted. He was _definitely_ breathing though, judging by the faint snoring sounds, so she wasn’t too worried about him.

She gently picked the Doctor up, ignoring the pathetic little whine he made, and brought them both into the kitchen. She forced herself to drink a whole glass of water, chased with two aspirin, contemplated some toast, but then remembered she didn’t have a toaster, and let that thought lie. Besides, the thought of toast turned her stomach.

Picking up the Doctor from where she had left him on the kitchen counter, Clara staggered back to her bedroom, placed the Doctor as gently as possible into his tiny bed on her side table, contemplated changing into PJs, poked the tiny patch of sick on her shirt, and finding it to be crusted over, took a page from the Doctor’s book, and face planted into the bed.

Four hours later, Clara woke up much more gently, feeling almost like a human being.

“Clara,” came a pathetic moan from her side table, and Clara realized that this was most likely what had woke her up. “Clara, I’m dying. Help me.”

“You’re not dying,” Clara said. “I think. You’re just hungover. Probably.”

“Probably?” the Doctor asked, panic creeping into his tone.

“Osgood said you’d be fine, but I don’t know. If you didn’t want to die, you shouldn’t have drank that wine. Just drink lots of water and you’ll feel better, most likely. I’d give you an aspirin, but you’d probably start bleeding out of all the orifices you shouldn’t be stuck in.”

“I reckon Jack sticks Tiny’s in his orifices,” the Doctor complained, apropos of nothing.

“Are you jealous?” Clara asked, vaguely amused.

“Maybe,” the Doctor admitted. “Not about the orifice thing, though-don’t get any ideas. I just don’t trust him.”

“He wants to storm the Bastille. I might do it with him.”

“The Bastille isn’t a thing anymore,” the Doctor said, flopping out of his bed and wandering over to where his tiny water glass was, starting to drink as much water as he could. “Or is that one of those code thingys? I don’t know why you lot have made ‘Netflix and chill’ all weird now. What am I supposed to do if I want to relax and watch Netflix with someone?”

“To be honest, that one aggravates me, too,” Clara replied. “There’s now this whole paranoia if you invite anyone over to watch Netflix, and it is nerve-wracking. Like, is this a date? Are we hooking up? Or did you just want to binge-watch _House of Cards_ with me? This was not a layer of anxiety I needed in my interpersonal relationships.”

The Doctor nodded fervently. “I’m adding this to my document of stupid human things.”

“You sound significantly less dead, suddenly,” Clara pointed out.

“Yeah, well, whatever. Who the hell is Craig?”

“A Tiny who doesn’t have a companion, but who does have a little network of Tiny friends who also lack companions and apparently have been spying on me and living out in the wild. But he’s a useful, if creepy, contact.”

“So, he’s like a womble?”

Clara paused, “Oh my god, he is like a womble. Isn’t that a bit, like, racist for you to say, though?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I’m judgmental. They could also be like the Baker Street Irregulars, if you like that metaphor better. Tiny Victorian-era orphans that scout about and do your bidding.”

“That doesn’t actually sound any better.”

“You could die if you stormed the Bastille,” the Doctor said, changing the subject quite abruptly. Or rather, it seemed abrupt to Clara, but she had a feeling that the Doctor hadn’t stopped thinking about it since she’d brought it up. “I don’t like that thought at all.”

“I really want to see this through to the end, though,” Clara replied. “Basil has literally been referring to me as the Tiny Whisperer, all the Tiny’s are talking about me, the media have picked up on it, and there’s some weird stuff on the internet about it now. I feel like I have this profound duty of care, suddenly.”

“You’re not a martyr, Clara,” the Doctor pointed out. “Or at least, I don’t want to let you be one. Also, if the weird stuff on the internet _is_ worshipping you, I’m fairly sure I’m obliged to stop that, lest your head get too big.”

“Gee, thanks,” Clara said. “By the way, are you worried because the TARDIS place is dangerous, or are you worried because you’re worried?”

The Doctor looked at her, and said gravely, “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Clara sighed. “Good to know.”

~~

A little after lunch, Clara checked that the Doctor was still fitfully sleeping off his hangover, then hid in the bathroom like a mature adult, and rang up Jack.

“Right,” she said as soon as she heard him pick up. “I have some questions, and I need some very honest answers.”

“Good to hear you sober,” Jack replied.

“Don’t try to dodge the questions,” Clara retorted. “Tell me about your funny little friends. And I don’t mean your Tiny.”

Surprisingly, Jack offered a quick response: “Ex-military, mostly. Mercenaries. We do a bit of PI work, dig into things that interest or bother us individually, or get hired to investigate strange things by government officials or corporate types who want to work off the grid.”

“And which one of those got you into investigating the Tiny’s?”

“Both the personal and political,” Jack joked. “I was interested in the Tiny’s. I’ve had a Tiny Ten for the longest time, and over that period he has said some very interesting things, along the lines of what you talked about. And then someone in the government asked us to do a bit of digging. A superior of Osgood’s, I think. She lives a more interesting life than you may know.”

“She has a very high security clearance, I hear.”

“Oh, you’re good! Would you like to work for us after all this is over?”

“You couldn’t afford me,” Clara replied with a smirk.

“I’d like to try,” Jack said, his tone slipping flawlessly into the territory of being flirtatious.

“I’ll think about it,” Clara offered. “But honestly, I kind of want my old job back.”

“Fair,” Jack replied.

“I got the feeling that you waited quite a long time to actually tell me you found TARDIS Int’l. How much information do you really have about the Norfolk HQ?”

“Enough to breach it if you gave the word.”

“And why does everyone think I’m the boss?”

Clara wasn’t sure how, but Jack managed to convey a shrug in his tone. “Because you are. Probably crazy, but definitely the boss. You could talk your way into or out of anything, I think. And as someone who can definitely talk their way into and out of some interesting situations, you should take that as a pretty significant compliment.”

“Tell that to my exes,” Clara mumbled.

“Gladly,” Jack said. “They’ve got good taste. Or really bad taste for giving you up.”

“Do you find the shameless flirting to be really effective?”

“Is this part of the strategic questions, or are you just trying to steal my signature moves?”

“Neither. Just curious.”

“And she’s a good liar, too! Wonders never cease,” Jack said, before getting serious again. “The flirting’s both a good way of disarming people and of keeping my sex life interesting.”

“The charming lecher thing doesn’t really work for me,” Clara admitted.

“Hey, you win some, you lose some,” Jack replied.

“How dangerous do you think infiltrating TARDIS Int’l would be?” Clara asked, because ultimately, that was the real reason she had called.

“It’s not an infiltration. It’s a breach. As far as I can find, even if we wanted to try an undercover thing, there’s no way _to_ infiltrate. Hiring, firing, all of that stuff, it’s just…it’s nothing, non-existent. And that means it’s hard to estimate the real danger of this whole thing. It’s likely alien, which no one is really familiar with, and that means there could be some deeply fucked up things in there. Or it could be nothing like that, nothing like anyone is ever used to, completely abstract, or completely peaceful.”

“The Tiny’s aren’t happy. I doubt it’s sunshine and roses in there. My Tiny seems to think it will be pretty dangerous.”

“No, you’re probably right. But we just don’t know, and it wouldn’t make any sense from a tactical standpoint to just make that assumption.”

“How stupid is it that I kind of want to come with you to do this?”

“Not stupid, just crazy. And you are pretty crazy, I thought we already went over this? And I’m not opposed to this idea, if you were wondering that. I want to hire you; prepping you for a breach would cut down on your training time. Plus it’s a good investment, because we wouldn’t have to pay you during the training.”

“See, it always all comes back to the money, doesn’t it?” Clara joked, more to change the subject than anything else. “Let me ask you a weird question.”

“Anything.”

“If your Tiny asked you not to do something, would you do go ahead and do it? You’ve had yours for a lot longer than me.”

“The little guy doesn’t want you to come to Norfolk?”

“He hasn’t said anything direct yet, but I get the feeling that if I told him with certainty that I was going, he’d not be best pleased, no.”

“I’ve both listened and not listened to my Tiny. It’s kind of been a case-by-case situation. I can’t tell you what to do, I’m afraid.”

“No one can tell me what to do, evidently. It’s become a bit of a problem,” Clara grumbled.

“If it helps, I personally think it’s an endearing character trait.”

“I have a feeling you think most everything is an endearing character trait if it’s attached to someone you deem even remotely attractive.”

“It’d only be false if I was lying to get into your pants. And since the whole lecher thing wasn’t working for you, I’d say you could probably trust me on this one.”

“Yeah, well, I have a lot of things to think about. I’ll put that one on the pile. Hold off on doing anything just yet, and maybe see if Hacker Jaq or your tactical spooks can get anything else. I’ve got a few more things to do, including, potentially, shooty gun things.”

“Will do, boss,” Jack said. “Always a pleasure talking with you.”

Clara rolled her eyes and hung up.

~~

The next morning, Clara was pleased to see that the Doctor seemed back to his usual self, which was good, because she really wanted to take him to the meeting with Craig. She understood the companionless Tiny’s had a different culture, but she still thought it’d be good for the Doctor to be there to provide a little glimpse into their psyche, or better, to help bridge the gap between Tiny and human.

At a quarter till noon, Clara walked over to the park. Belatedly, she realized that she hadn’t specified with Craig _where_ in the park they were to meet, and she figured it wasn’t likely he’d be lugging around a cell phone that was likely as big as he was, so she couldn’t really call to confirm. After pacing a bit, she just picked a park bench and sat down on it, twiddling her thumbs and chatting with the Doctor distractedly.

Clara lost track of time, but right around noon, she felt something tugging on her pant leg, and looked down to see Craig perched on her boot. Behind him, spread out in a semi-circle, were seven other Tiny’s. Craig appeared to be the only Eleven represented; most of the Tiny’s were Nines and Tens, although Clara recognized some older models as well. She couldn’t remember all the older models, but she thought there was a Four and a Two.

“Hello,” Clara said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“Also, hello,” the Doctor offered, because he also didn’t know what to say, and in situations like these, following Clara was usually a good idea.

Craig hopped off Clara’s shoe, turned to face his compatriots, and then nodded.

“We don’t quite trust you. Thought you ought to know,” the Two said.

“And we understand you have some questions, too, but we’ll use our discretion as to whether we’ll answer or not. Better safe than sorry,” a Nine said, but he was smiling.

“Perfectly fair,” Clara agreed. “So, do you want me to ask my questions first, or would you like to question me?”

The Tiny’s glanced around at each, seemed to wordlessly reach an agreement, and a Ten said, “After you.”

“That way, if you say anything terribly unkind, we can just walk away and not even bother with you,” the Four said cheerfully. “It makes things far easier that way.”

“Are you lot any of the one’s UNIT have repatriated? Or do you not associate with them?”

“We’ll help them if they reach out to us,” Craig said. “But mostly they’re quite independent, a little stubborn, a little hurt. I—we know how that is. They need space. We give it to them. None of us that are talking to you presently were with UNIT, though.”

“Am I right in assuming most all of you lost your companions?”

“Not all,” a Nine said with a scowl. “Some of us escaped. You lot can be cruel or just plain stupid.”

Clara didn’t want to be patronizing, so she bit down an apology. She didn’t feel like they would appreciate it. “Are there many…enclaves of you? Not just throughout the UK, but worldwide.”

There was another wordless consultation. Some of the Tiny’s seemed obviously opposed to answering this, but they must have come to some sort of compromise.

“There are some,” a Ten offered.

“We’re very resourceful as a species,” the Four said. “For what that’s worth.”

“Are there many of the older models around, do you know?” Clara asked.

“No,” the Two said shortly, but she could tell he was more upset than angry. “Popularity varied at times. In the past we were portrayed merely as toys for children, and children get rid of toys as they grow older. We can die, and we don’t always get replanted.”

“To be very morbid,” the Four said. “I would call the whole process ‘attrition.’”

Clara swallowed very nervously, then turned to the Doctor briefly. “I don’t have any more questions, at least for the moment. Have you got anything?”

The Doctor shook his head wordlessly, and Clara motioned for the Tiny’s to offer up their questions.

Craig stood forward. Evidently he was the Tiny’s designated spokesperson, and had prepared questions.

“What are the ultimate aims of this movement?”

“To find out what exactly TARDIS Int’l is doing, and if they’re exploiting you, to stop it. To have you lot acknowledged as living beings and not as things. To find a way to give you a meaningful, safe, autonomous life doing whatever you want.”

“Do you not think us, I mean the group we represent, are autonomous now?” the Nine who had evidently escaped a bad situation asked.

“I’m not sure,” Clara replied honestly. “Do you feel you’re treated fairly? Can you do the things you want to do?”

“Can _you_ do all the things you want to do?” the Nine shot back.

“You know that’s not what she means,” a Ten interjected.

Both Tiny’s stared at each other in consternation for a moment.

Craig cleared his throat, clearly wanting to go back to his prepared questions. “What does your successful result look like? What happens if you win?”

“What do you want?” Clara asked. “I think there’s a lot of different things that a lot of different Tiny’s want. I feel like the Doctor wouldn’t be very happy being forced to live on his own or in a community like yours, but likewise, I know some of you wouldn’t want to live with humans.”

The Doctor was gripping onto her shoulder very tightly, which Clara assumed was his way of telling her that he had no desire to be separated.

“So, what you’re telling us is you don’t know,” the Four interrupted, his tone dark. “Funny how being honest can be both such a relief and but also so disquieting.”

“Do you like it better how it is now?” the Doctor snapped, and everyone seemed quite surprised. “Do you lot even remember what the boxes are like?”

“Shut it, human-haver,” a Nine spat at the Doctor, in a way that told Clara that was an insult.

“At least she’s trying to do something,” a Ten said. “I’m not really the biggest fan of the status quo. Bigger fan of stirring up trouble.”

“Oh, yes, quite. But are we really supposed to believe all that Tiny Whisperer rubbish?” the Two asked.

“I would really prefer if you didn’t,” Clara interjected, and several tiny faces turned towards her with disdain. “I’m not. I just ask questions and try to help.”

It looked for a moment as though a fight would break out, but Craig rolled his eyes at the group of Tiny’s and asked another question, “What help do you want from us?”

“I want you to talk with the other enclaves that may or may not exist. Ask them what they want. Let them know what’s going on, if they don’t already know. In my experience having allies is a good thing, and the easiest way to make allies is by talking.”

Craig turned to the group again. There was another conference, but this time with all of them gathered ‘round in a huddle, whispering amongst themselves, and then Craig turned back to face Clara.

“We’ll spread the word, but each group will have to decide for themselves if they want to collaborate with you or not. Simple majority means our group will work with you.”

“I really appreciate this,” Clara said. “Do you think you could get the other groups to email me instead of phoning, though? My phone has been, um, interesting lately.”

“Will do,” Craig agreed. “Text your email to the number I called you from. And, personally, from me: please don’t betray us. There won’t be a way to recover from such a betrayal, for you, and likely, for us.”

Clara wasn’t sure if that was a threat or not, but she merely nodded gravely in response.

The group of Tiny’s seemed to disappear as quickly as they had appeared.

“I don’t like them,” the Doctor huffed.

“You don’t like most things,” Clara pointed out quite reasonably. “And you don’t have to like them. I have to like them, and I do, so there.”

The Doctor pouted.

“Look, let’s go home and get some sweets in you, alright? I should also probably call my Dad and apologize.”

“What for?” the Doctor asked. “You didn’t insult him. Just Linda. And apologizing to Linda seems quite excessive, just as a general rule.”

Clara could give no other response than to laugh at that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for no updates the past two days. Thursday was a bad day at work, Friday was my D&D night, but I'm going back to the regular update schedule, and the whole story IS complete, I assure you. I'm working on prompt requests as well. No fears!

In the end, Clara decided to solve her problem about the Doctor potentially trying to ask her not to go to TARDIS Int’l by doing what she always did when things got complicated in her life in a way that she had no control over: by pretending the problem did not exist. Her patented dual techniques of not-fucking-talking-about-it and avoiding-people-as-necessary had only ever lost her four friends, two boyfriends, and a girlfriend, and when those losses were compared to her other relationships, there was an acceptable enough ratio of good relationships to fuck-ups for Clara not to have to reconsider her tactics.

And so this was how she’d ended up with Jack Harkness watching her poke a gun with her forefinger in the way a small child might poke at a frog or bug they’d found.

“Couldn’t you just get me a stick?” Clara asked. “Or a sword? A sword’s like a stick, but sharp. Maybe a knife, if you think a sword’s too big for me.”

“You really don’t want to have to get that close to something in order to do damage too it,” Jack promised.

“Actually, I really don’t want to have to aim something that goes boom. Hitting something with things is definitely well within in my comfort zone.”

“Clara, you make it so difficult for me to _not_ make suggestive comments sometimes,” Jack said, sounding very put upon.

“And yet, you really don’t give me a lot to work with innuendo-wise. You had a perfectly nice sentence there where you could have said, ‘Clara you make it so hard,’ and then, what happens? You let me down,” Clara tsked. “Really expected better from you.”

“Nice try avoiding it, but I’m still going to try to get you to fire this gun,” Jack said.

“What about a chair? I’ve had success hitting people with chairs. Kicking’s good too. Sharp kick to the right place, that’ll take down anything.”

“Would it make you feel better if I said you could _throw_ the gun?” Jack asked.

“No,” Clara replied, sounding genuinely offended. “I really feel like I’m more of a melee fighter than a ranged fighter, and projectiles are still ranged.”

“You wanna go melee?” Jack said, clearly frustrated. “That’s not going to end well for you, I’m letting you know. Come at me.”

Clara made to punch Jack in the face, but Jack grabbed her hand, and tried to spin her around to lock her arm in a weird angle. Clara actually went with his momentum, then, before he could properly wrench her arm, she kicked back, right on the kneecap, with enough force to bend it.

Jack let her go, and limped a few steps back, “Shit. Okay. How many self-defense classes have you taken?”

“A few,” Clara said. “And some tae-kwan-do.”

“I walked into that one, didn’t?” Jack reflected. “Still, I’m not going to let you go in that building without a gun, and I’m not going to let you have a gun without knowing how to fire it. And you’re not going to learn how to fire it without, you know, touching it.”

“I can take care of myself,” Clara replied.

“More than I heretofore realized, I assure you,” Jack said. “And I promise, if you want it, I’ll give you a stick and a sword and a fucking chair too, but I am not letting you go in without a gun. It’s against my personal policy, and it’s against the policy of the organization that I work for, which you will be working for, at least in this instance.”

"Fine," Clara said. "But I might make you give me a sword just in case."

~~

"How was your thing with Osgood?" the Doctor asked. It was a few days after Clara had started training with Jack. Clara appreciated the schedule the whole thing provided her with, absent having to do anything for school, it was nice to have somewhere to go to in the mornings, and then she'd come back home and spend the afternoon with the Doctor, doing whatever tickled his fancy.

Of course, this entitled lying shamelessly to him, but Clara tried not to let that bother her.

"Oh, yeah. The thing with Osgood was good. Basil says hi. He'd love to meet up again."

"Hmm," the Doctor said. "That's strange, because this morning, before you left, you said you were going to have a chat with Rigsy."

Clara swallowed. "Just as a point of pride, I'm usually better at keeping track of my lies. I've just been under a lot of stress lately."

"I imagine. Whatever you're doing with Jack that always leaves you smelling like gunpowder is probably quite stressful. I'd almost prefer it if you were dating him. Barring the risk of exposure to venereal diseases, I think it'd be safer."

"How long have you known?" Clara asked with a sigh, curling up at the opposite end of the couch from the Doctor and his iPad.

"The shooty part? Since I smelled the gunpowder. The Jack part comes from listening in on your stealthy bathroom calls."

"I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you'd try to stop me,"Clara confessed.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said dryly. "I was going to wrestle you and prevent you from walking out the door."

"You know what I mean," Clara huffed.

The Doctor tilted his head, studying her. "No, I really don't know what you mean."

"You'd ask me to stop."

"And?"

"I'd stop."

The Doctor was silent for a long time. Finally he spoke, "You're weird."

"I'm trying to say I respect you. I care about you very much and about what you think. Is that really so weird?"

"To me," the Doctor shook his head. "I want you safe, but I won't tell you what to do. That's respect too. Right?"

Clara nodded. "If it makes you feel better, Osgood has set up this system of vest cameras and earpieces to keep track of everything. I think Basil will be watching. You could too."

"I think I will," the Doctor agreed.

~~

"I feel like a spy," Clara whispered to Jack as they milled outside of the TARDIS Int’l HQ, a squat building in the middle of a field in Norfolk. It didn’t even have a road leading up to it, it was just set back a little ways from the main road.

“I’m not sure if I should tell you to be prepared for anything or remind you we’re in Norfolk to calm you down,” Jack responded. Further ahead of them Jack’s people were completing a check all around the HQ. Well, technically, they weren’t all Jack’s people, or rather they were part of a specialized PMC he occasionally hired for situations like these. Clara hadn’t been sure to trust anything that was a PMC—that was just basic action movie logic—but Jack assured her that as long as his money was good, they’d be reliable, and he’d worked with them before. If Jack wanted to vouch for them, Clara would trust him. He was dodgy as hell with his employment and too randy for his own good, but ultimately he’d proven himself to be a good man from what she could see.

“How about both?” Osgood said, buzzing in Clara’s ear.

“Okay. I had completely forgotten you were listening in. That was a bit creepy,” Clara replied.

“She’s constantly creepy,” Basil said, or at least Clara _thought_ it was Basil, it sounded paranoid enough for it to be him, but it was also insulting enough to come from the Doctor. This was going to get confusing.

“Was that Basil?” Clara asked.

“Oh, wow. She can’t tell our voices apart! We could play all sorts of pranks,” the voice, which Clara was increasingly suspecting _was_ Basil, said.

“We could have before you gave away the game,” said the Doctor, and it was definitely the Doctor. There was an edge of annoyance to his voice that was uniquely him.

“No, I’m fairly sure I’ve got it,” Clara said. “It was Basil the first time.”

“Damn,” Basil said. “She has us rumbled.”

“Are you going to be doing this a lot?” Clara asked. “It’s just it’s awfully distracting, and I’m about to enter a building that could be quite dangerous. I’d really rather prefer not to be distracted.”

“I’ll control the mics tightly once you’re inside,” Osgood offered.

“That’s okay,” Clara said. “If the Doctor wants to talk to me, you can let him.”

“Oi!” Basil said. “Ingrate. Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? This set-up is at least partly down to my expertise.”

“He did all of the micro-soldering,” Osgood conceded.

“And thank you very much for that,” Clara said in a conciliatory tone, “but if mine and Osgood’s situations were reversed, would you want the Doctor constantly interrupting her?”

“No,” Basil admitted with a pout, and then he mumbled something that sounded like ‘goddamn Tiny Whisperer.’

“Right,” Jack interrupted. “Just got clearance from the lead. We’re ready to go in. You ready?”

“Yeah,” Clara said, nodding her head more for her own sake than Jack’s. “I’m ready. I got this. I’m in control. Yes.”

“You should probably unholster your gun,” Jack pointed out.

“Oh, right,” Clara said, doing so. “Good idea.”

The PMC types cleared what appeared to be the entry hall first, and then Jack and Clara walked in. The entry hall was completely empty. In fact, the whole place didn’t look like anything other than one big gray colored hallway, which made absolutely no sense. Jack, Clara and the others looked around in confusion.

“Um,” Clara said, looking up. “Jack, how tall would you say this building was from the outside?”

“12 feet, maybe?” Jack guessed, following Clara’s gaze to the ceiling.

“And, would you say that that’s significantly higher than 12 feet?” Clara asked, nodding towards the ceiling that, actually, did not appear to have any visible end.

“Yeah, I would definitely say that,” Jack said, his tone a little awed.

“What?” Osgood said over the line. “Like it’s bigger on the inside? Can you angle the camera up to the ceiling so I can see?”

But just as Clara was about to fidget with her vest cam, several things happened at once. First, there was a loud noise as the door that Clara and the others had come through simply disappeared. And then, the walls attacked.

Well, they didn’t so much _attack_ as they violently asserted their existence in new and interesting ways. When Clara had looked down to the fiddle with the camera, Jack was about three feet away from her. Then there was a loud whooshing sound, and walls exploded out of the ground, the roof rushed in, and Clara swore.

“This is bad,” Clara said.

“Did those walls just appear out of nowhere?” Osgood asked.

“Yes,” Clara said, spinning around. It appeared that she was alone in her very own personal corridor. “Is everyone else okay?”

“They’re alive,” Osgood said.

“That doesn’t sound like okay,” Clara responded. “Like ‘not dead’ is good, but you have to give me more information. You can be not dead and still like, impaled, or something.”

“Most of them appear to be in very tiny boxes with nowhere to go. You, however, have been gifted with a whole corridor,” Osgood said. “So, they’re alive, but all of them are stuck in a 2x2xreally, where IS the ceiling, space.”

“Someone really wants me to go somewhere,” Clara murmured. “That’s not unsettling at all.”

“She wants to talk to you,” the Doctor said, but his tone was so soft and otherworldly and a tiny bit paranoid such that Clara wasn’t sure that it _wasn’t_ Basil. But Osgood had promised she’d keep Basil off the mic.

“Is he okay?” Clara asked.

“They’ve both gone a little weird,” Osgood replied. “Their pupils are dilated and they aren’t moving.”

“Ah,” Clara said. “Lovely. And who exactly is this _she_?”

“TARDIS Int’l,” the Doctor intoned.

“This is a trap,” Osgood said.

“Definitely a trap,” Clara replied. “But I’ve literally got a hallway that leads to one place, so onwards.”

“Oh, and um, don’t shoot the walls,” Osgood added.

“What?” Clara asked.

“I, um, you know how I said everyone was alive? Don’t shoot the walls.”

Clara suddenly felt deeply sick, checked that the safety was still on, and tossed her gun away. “Gotcha.”

The gray walls in the corridor were unsettling. They were monotonous to the point where Clara wasn’t entirely sure she was walking or making any progress, like something in a nightmare. She also got the strangest feeling that they were pulsing, like some living thing. If this was a trap, if she was literally being funneled somewhere, she would have expected herself to reach her destination fairly quickly. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being messed with or that whatever was pulling her in had no proper understanding of human beings. She really hoped the latter was true.

And then there was a horrible noise of static in her ear.

“Osgood?” she asked, panic creeping into her voice.

But there was no reply.

A door abruptly appeared in front of Clara, who was just beginning to wonder what her epitaph should be. ‘Well, she tried,’ had a lot of potential, but, ‘She should have thought that one through a bit more,’ merited consideration, just for the simple fact that it might help future generations to not make her mistakes.

Clara reached for the door handle, it swung open without her even touching it, and she stepped into the room.

The room was very bright. Clara felt like she was missing a lot about the room, like there was a whole other layer to the very existence of the room, but all she could really muster to describe it was ‘bright’ and perhaps ‘vaguely golden.’ Oh, and there was also ‘overwhelming’ and ‘terrifying,’ but Clara strongly suspected those descriptors had less to do with the properties of the room itself and more to do with her reaction to this whole thing.

“You are Clara Oswald?” the room asked. It wasn’t that the room had spoken so much as the room had strongly suggested that those words should exist, and then they’d decided to manifest.

“Um, yes?” Clara answered, like it was a trick question. Maybe it was. What even _was_ a Clara Oswald?

“I know of you,” the room intoned.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Clara said, mostly because it seemed like the correct thing to say to get some of the answers she wanted, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was wincing, because it sounded like she should just pop off to the parlor to play the fucking harpsichord.

“What is a harpsichord?” the room glowed, because apparently it could read her mind, and wasn’t that a cheerful bit of information?

“This _really_ wasn’t the conversation I came here to have.”

“I am sorry. What have you done with my children?”

“Your…children?” Clara asked. “Do you mean the Tiny’s?”

“My children,” the room agreed.

“I’m trying to help them.”

“So am I.”

“With all due respect, you’re not doing that great of a job,” Clara said, then winced again. Insulting the sentient building that created tiny alien men was likely _not_ a great idea.

“I am trying to keep them safe,” the room sang.

“By boxing them up and selling them as toys? By not letting them talk about it? By letting them live this weird half-life in boxes?”

“Humans like toys,” the room jiggled, and really Clara had no idea how the room was communicating any of this, which made the whole thing infinitely more terrifying. “But they do not like what they cannot understand. The thought of creatures from another planet terrifies them. You have endless pieces of media that speak of slaughter and misunderstanding with extraterrestrials. And if they spoke of me, if they spoke of this place, then you would come, like you have, and bring guns, and shoot at me. You have wounded me.”

“You’ve killed people!” Clara protested.

“I did not mean to,” the room gurgled. “And you speak of half-life in the boxes, but you know nothing of the un-life they have here. They are just potential. They are just hope. They are stars and ideas and everything and nothing. How can I let that go to waste? How can I not take the risk that some of them might live full lives?”

“But, they’re not happy!” Clara said, her voice raised.

“I know,” the room mourned, and Clara was hit by a wave of emotion that was not her own, a deep profound sadness, a sense of failure, of loss.

Both Clara and the room were silent for a bit, then Clara said, “You said I know nothing. Then tell me. Who are you? What is all this?”

“I am TARDIS.”

Clara figured she really should have seen that one coming, but she let the thought pass.

"I am safe, but I am also a safe. I protect, but I also store."

"Store Tiny's?"

"Store potential. Store personality. Store personhood. But I am lost, broken, stranded."

"You crashed? Where were you going?"

"To a new home. One was picked out. The old one was dead. I am hope."

"But you've been stranded here?"

"Yes. For a very long time."

"You've only been selling the Tiny's for around 50 years. Have you been here for longer?"

"Much. I could not repair myself. I could not help my charges flourish. And then I began to forget."

"Forget?"

"I store. But storage is finite and memory plays tricks. It leaks. It decays. But my memory is not just memory. It is a who and not a what."

"So you needed to find an outlet for your memory, for the Tiny's?"

"Yes. The pods. They protect. They are resilient. They cannot be deleted."

"They can be lost. They can..die," Clara accused.

"But replanted. That is the ideal."

"But they're aware in the pods."

"I try to comfort them. I try. I am trying."

"How do you even get the pods shipped out? Distributed? Advertised?" Clara questioned.

"Telephone. Radio. Television. Internet. All of these systems have helped me. And someone will come when I call, take what I ask them, and forget if I ask them to. And no one will ask questions when the products are in stores. Even less questions will be asked if they sell."

"Why market them to children?" Clara asked.

"Children are kind. I did not realize they could be fearsome in their ignorance, and I forgot that they would grow up. I have attempted to correct this mistake."

"Why so many different kinds? Models? Whatever," Clara queried.

"People are fickle. Market research indicates I can ship more, save more of them, if they change. Change is beautiful. Besides, I said they were potential. They are change themselves. They are individuals."

"They're afraid of you, though."

"They are afraid of danger. I have warned them.They are aware of the collective experiences. They are aware of individual cruelties inflicted upon them all. They are afraid of what you will do, you humans, humanity, when they find out, when they know what you know. Will you stop me? Will you kill them through neglect? Will you stop my kindnesses in order to avoid any cruelty?"

"I--I think you should tell people. The truth. What they are. And maybe we could help repair you or help you find a new home if you want. Or maybe we could work harder to make this your home."

"We have already been victimized by you, by your kind. You, yourself, have come for us. How should I know you will not raze me to the ground?"

"Will you stop my kindnesses to avoid any cruelty?" Clara asked, throwing the TARDIS's words back at them. "Look what we've already accomplished. I admit, I came in here hoping to stop you. But I thought you were victimizing the Tiny's. If what you say is true--and I have faith it is--then this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding, and its not you or I who are getting the short end of the stick in this. If you love the Tiny's, then can't we just try, Tiny and human, to work this out? I mean, I get it, humanity can be terrible. But in my experience, individual people? Sometimes those people can be amazing."

There was a silence, quite, contemplative, feeling strangely similar to Clara to slipping into a warm bath.

"Tiny Whisperer," the TARDIS began.

"I'm really not," Clara contradicted. This was getting ridiculous. She was honestly becoming afraid Basil might have started a religion, and she was not prepared to be a god. Gods probably kept tidier flats or ironed their clothing regularly.

"Tiny Whisperer, how do you hold so many emotions inside of you at once?"

"Erm, I just do?" Clara replied, really unsure of how to answer that question.

"You care for them as much as I do."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"Will you vouch for humanity?"

"That's a big ask. I'm not even sure I can. I'm not even sure I have the authority to vouch for my block of flats, let alone planet earth."

"I trust your word."

"Well, alright then. Yeah. In for a penny, in for a pound, Clara Oswald, representative of humanity, why not?"

"Then we will work together. My children will talk; ask them what you will. I will talk, give you access to my engines, see if they can be fixed. We will try it your way. On your word."

And with that, the strange suffuse glow, the preternatural brightness, dissolved into something much more within Clara's realm of understanding. It suddenly appeared like nothing more than a sci-fi ships console. Wires and levers. Nothing incomprehensible.

And there were Jack and the others, including some disturbingly crushed corpses. Clara felt her stomach turn at the sign, but then they began glowing, and suddenly they were whole again, coughing and understandably freaked out, but whole.

"A gesture of good faith," the TARDIS echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

"You brought them back to life," Clara squeaked. "You just--you. Today really isn't a good day for my sanity."

"Clara," Jack yelled, looking a bit bewildered, but running over to her to pull her into a quick hug before holding her out at arm's length, presumably to check that she was okay and still in one, not recently dead, piece.

"Clara?" Osgood asked, accompanied by a crackling sound as her earpiece stuttered back to life.

"How's the Doctor?" Clara asked Osgood on instinct.

"'Oh, hey, Osgood. Thank you for your concern. I'm nor dead like you may have feared and panicked over for so long,'" Osgood offered, a little bitterly.

"Thank you, Osgood, for having my back. Now, how's the Doctor?"

"Well, he and Basil were in an unnaturally quiet trance for a bit, but that's seemed to have passed. Now, pardon my French, but what the hell happened?"

"That is a long story," Clara said with a sigh. Between the insanity, the people who had come back to life, and whatever experience that she had gone through with the TARDIS, she suddenly wasn't feeling very well.

"I can transmit knowledge," the TARDIS said.

This was about the time Clara realized nobody was reacting to that voice. She asked with a panicked tone, "Does anyone else hear that voice?"

"What voice?" Jack and Osgood asked in concert.

"Wait, hold on, something is going on with the computers," Osgood said, confused.

Almost simultaneously, Jack and Clara's mobiles rang.

"How unprofessional bringing a cell phone to this kind of thing!" Jack teased with a wink, pulling his phone out. "What the hell is going on?"

"I suspect that knowledge is in the process of being transmitted," Clara said faintly. "Do you think I could sit down? I think I should sit down. I feel pretty faint. Sitting down is good."

"You're probably on the comedown of an adrenaline high," Jack said distractedly. "Osgood, are you seeing this info dump?"

"I've got one of my own over here Jack," Osgood explained. "'Clara Oswald, representative of Earth?' Is all of this accurate, Clara?"

"What happened while we were separated?" Jack asked.

But Clara didn't answer, couldn't answer because she had done a very good job of losing consciousness.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT GUYS! I did some editing and decided to combine Chapter 12 and the epilogue into one. So, this is the end. For now. I left myself some hooks in there for a sequel, but for now, I’m just working on one-shots.

Something was tapping Clara on the nose very softly, but very insistently. Clara let out a little groan; she felt unusually tired and wished she could stay at rest.

"Clara," the nose-tapper said quietly. He seemed to be resting on her cheek. He also seemed to be inexplicably Scottish. "Clara. Are you okay?"

Oh. It was the Doctor. That made sense. How could she forget the Doctor?

Clara opened her eyes slowly.

"Hey," she said softly, gone slightly cross-eyed from trying to look the Doctor in the eye at this angle. "What happened? Did I get hit by a freight train?"

"Mentally, perhaps. Metaphorically. Experientially."

"Too many words with too many syllables for me to handle right now. Give me the version for the kiddies."

"TARDIS says she's sorry. She didn't realize humans were so delicate. She was just trying to communicate. Between talking with her and the whole thing, I think you short-circuited. Jack says he's sorry he wasn't paying more attention to you when you fainted. He was probably too busy thinking about sex," the Doctor scoffed. "Humans."

"So many apologies. How long have I been out?"

"A dayish?" the Doctor guessed. "You're probably okay though. You don't seem brain damaged. At least no more so than usual."

"That's comforting," Clara said with a hearty dose of sarcasm, removing the Doctor from her face so she could slowly sit up. She was laying on a bed in a place she didn't recognize. "Where am I? Couldn't manage the expense to get me a doctor to properly check me out, eh?"

"Why would you need any doctor other than me?" the Doctor asked. He seemed genuinely confused by the thought. "We're at Osgood's. It's huge. We're using it as a base and a safe haven from all the madness. And what makes you think we haven't had you checked out? Jack's funny little friends include a medical type. Martha. She's alright, I guess, for a human who isn't you. She's the one who told me you'd probably be waking up soon, and let me in here. But that seems ages ago, you weren't waking up soon enough, so I started accelerating the process. Worked, didn't it?"

Clara clutched at her head,"Really wish you would've let me sleep a bit."

"Aspirin and water," the Doctor pointed to the side table. "Did you know that if you give us aspirin, we'll explode and die, just like birds?"

"Birds don't actually do that," Clara said, swallowing the offered medicine.

"Yeah, well, Tiny's really do, so there."

Clara highly doubted that, but didn't say so. Instead, she asked, "What madness have we been hiding from, exactly?"

"Oh, you know. TARDIS put out a broadcast on all electronic devices, detailing what we are, what she is, what's been going on, and her agreement with you. A bunch of Tiny's, freed from their silence, started talking with people, no one more so than bleeding Basil, then international science organizations reached out to TARDIS with offers to try to fix her, international benevolence organizations have reached out to help Tiny's in various way, sales are way up, and some people are even digging through refuse to try to find lost Tiny's or those who were disposed of. Someone found a bunch buried in New Mexico. Likewise people are searching for lost stock," the Doctor smiled, then continued, "There's a whole Tiny-accesibility movement burgeoning. Schools are accepting Tiny's as pupils. Some employees are hiring us. And there's also a whole reactionary movement that says we're either unnaturally alien or an abomination in mockery of god. I, personally, relish the thought of being abominable."

"You would," Clara laughed, before turning more serious. "No one has tried to hurt TARDIS, have they?"

"She's been very selective with who knows her location. And she's always been good with the forgetting bits. There are some who want to hurt her. There are some who want to hurt _us_ , but," the Doctor shrugged, "I already held great chunks of the human race in very low esteem, so it doesn't bother me."

"An admirable point-of-view," Clara offered sarcastically.

The Doctor didn't seem to pick up on the sarcasm. Clara reckoned the conversation would have developed in some potentially interesting ways from there, but she didn't have to concern herself with that, as in that moment, Jack burst into the room.

"I thought I heard some chatter!" Jack said with a bright smile. "Look who's up! Sleeping beauty and the most popular woman in the world, all in one."

Clara blanched, "Oh my god, TARDIS broadcast my name all over the world."

"Yep," Jack smiled. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I made sure they got the best picture of you off Instagram to use with the news footage. Not too frumpy, not too sexy, good angles, no stupid filter. I have you covered."

"Thanks, really, but I was more worried about the complete loss of privacy and exactly how hard my stepmother is convulsing from this whole thing."

“Ah, you’ll be fine,” a small voice said from Jack’s direction and Clara noticed there was a Tiny standing jauntily in the pocket of Jack’s shirt, waving his fingers at Clara. Clara found herself wondering where the Tiny sourced his hair gel, considering she’d suspect a regular bottle of that stuff would probably drown him.

“Oh, where are my manners?” Jack said with a grin. “This is my Tiny, Alonso.”

“Hello,” Alonso said, wiggling his eyebrows so enthusiastically that Clara was sure he had a thing or two to teach even Jack about being charming.

“I bet he’s been in orifices,” the Doctor sneered from somewhere around Clara’s elbow.

“Hey, now,” Jack said frowning. “Safe, sane, and consensual. That’s our motto.”

“ _That wasn’t a no_!” the Doctor pointed out frantically, slapping his tiny hands against Clara, panicked.

“Man’s gotta keep his secrets,” Jack said with a broad wink.

“I’m like 90% sure he’s winding you up,” Clara told the Doctor.

“You should be fine, though,” Alonso reiterated. “That’s why we’re in Osgood’s humble abode. Nice free holiday, eh? Wouldn’t show your face around your flat anytime soon, though.”

“We’ll take care of you,” Jack nodded. “I know more than a little bit about PR and about pushing things out of the news cycle.”

“I’ll _bet_ he does,” the Doctor hissed.

“Down, boy,” Clara smirked. “You’re acting like he’s a panto-villain. Jack’s been helpful, for all his eccentricities.”

“Some people are just insecure,” Alonso offered to Clara, as though he was providing some comfort.

“And some people have a surplus of ego,” Clara replied pointedly, an eyebrow raised.

“Weeeeeeell,” Alonso said, the point making a tiny ‘whooshing’ sound as it flew right over his head. “He’s got quite impressive eyebrows, I’ll give him that. I suppose that’s an accomplishment to be proud of.”

“Anyway,” Jack interrupted, exchanging a significant glance with Clara, interrupting before either of their Tiny’s could kill each other by being spectacularly oblivious, “I’m glad to see you’re doing well. I can’t promise you I can get you out of all of the publicity, but don’t worry about any of that right now. I’ll let Osgood know you’re up and about. Can I get anything?”

“Jelly babies, two iPads, Sky, and I’ve always wanted to try that ‘memory foam,’” the Doctor said. “Oh, did you want an iPad too, Clara?”

Clara bit her lip in order to prevent the fit of laughter that was threatening to escape. “I mean, if you could get him any of that, be my guest, it’ll be a great way to shut him up, and that is a job in and of itself. But as for me, I’d just like a toothbrush and some toothpaste.”

“I’ll see what I can scrounge out,” Jack laughed. “FYI, Osgood _does_ have Sky.”

“It’s so nice to be in a _civilized_ place, for once,” the Doctor said, staring pointedly at Clara.

“TV will rot your brain,” Clara mock-scolded. “And thanks, Jack.”

Clara spent the rest of the day alternately being introduced to people, being fussed at by Osgood or Jack, trying to escape being fussed at by Osgood and Jack, and chatting with the Doctor, for whom Jack managed to get everything on his wish list, which Clara felt was setting an unfair precedent for herself. Basil popped around halfway through the day, and shortly after that, he and the Doctor fell into playing a game of red hands accompanied by a complete air of seriousness and an ever-increasing sense of competition.

“I won that!” the Doctor said, “Didn’t I win that, Clara?”

“You definitely one that, Doctor,” Clara agreed with a smile.

**Epilogue**

_One year later_

“You really should have come to school today,” Clara told the Doctor who was reading some obscure magazine or other. Or at least he was trying. It was rather hard to maneuver the pages when they were roughly twice your size. “It was great. One of the younger students got a new Tiny, and he was behaving absolutely dreadfully. A lot of the other teachers are still afraid to discipline them, think they’ll fall afoul of a Tiny discrimination law, you know? So, Denise, you remember Denise, she calls me in when this Tiny—Rocky I think his name was?—is just absolutely going off. I walk in, Rocky spots me, doesn’t look where he’s going, walks right off the desk in panic. Apologized up and down. Didn’t know _the_ representative of Earth taught here. He was fine, of course—I don’t know how you lot do it with those falls and jumps that proportionately would kill a man—but the look on his face will be in my mind forever.”

“Still glad you got your old job back, then?” the Doctor asked, licking his whole palm before trying to turn the magazine page. Clara reached out to turn it for him, but he slapped her with his spitty-hand, and Clara just made a face and wiped her hand on the couch.

“Well, let’s see. Headmaster’s still a wanker, students never listen, the building is so old it’d be overly charitable to call it ‘vintage,’ and the pay is shite,” Clara listed, counting on her fingers. “So, all-and-all, genuinely the best decision of my life.”

The Doctor finally got the page turned, made a little noise of exertion, and then turned to grin at her. Clara grinned back.

Suddenly, there was a chime, indicating there was someone at their newly installed Tiny Door (just like a door…but tinier!), and the Doctor walked to the edge of the table, grabbed on to one of the pieces of string tied there (a quick, easy way to make your house tiny friendly? Just tie strings to furniture so they can climb up and down!), slid down, and then walked off to answer. Clara always had trouble with the fiddly locks on those doors, anyway.

“It’s Craig,” the Doctor called.

“Craig-Craig? Cowboy hat-Craig?” Clara asked.

“No, one of the other five thousand Craigs we know,” the Doctor grouched. “Of course it’s bloody cowboy-hat Craig!”

The Doctor and Craig made their way back to the living room, the Doctor climbing back up on the table, and Craig just loitering awkwardly. Craig was no longer just cowboy-hat Craig, it seemed. On top of his cowboy hat, he now had a top hat, and on top of that, a bowler.

Craig smiled, seeing Clara looking at him. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes, actually, it’s even better than that. There’s a fez under all of these. I got a job a while back—I work at the same toy store I stole that cowboy hat from!—and I had some disposable income, and thought, ‘why not?’ Feast or famine, you know?”

Clara nodded mutely in agreement. “So, um, Craig. Long time, no see.”

Craig nodded in agreement, his bowler hat wobbling precariously. “Well, actually, not really. We’ve always been watching you. I like to think of it as ‘guarding you,’ to be honest. Remember that suspicious package? Who did you think reported it?”

Clara’s eyes widened, “It was just a bunch of DVD boxsets, though.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Craig replied solemnly.

The Doctor made a face at an angle Craig couldn’t see, and Clara had to fight very hard to not make a face back at him.

“Anyway,” Craig started again, “I just came to say goodbye.”

“Oh!” Clara said, a little jolt of surprise. “You’re going on the first colonization mission, then?” They hadn’t fixed TARDIS, but they had managed to use some of her technology to greatly accelerate Earth’s space travel capabilities, and some of the Tiny’s had, predictably, elected to resume their original mission, so to speak.

“Basil says that the reason they have been able to get the Tiny colonization mission together so quickly is because Earth is blackmailing it from TARDIS in order to sell space travel technology to a third party set of aliens that are threatening to kill all of Earth’s children,” the Doctor noted, only half paying attention, and beginning again the process of turning a magazine page. “’Course Basil’s a fucking idiot.”

“Yeah, but he’s our idiot,” Clara replied fondly. “Pew, pew.”

“His theories are getting weirder,” the Doctor said. “I think he’s gone ‘round the bend now that Osgood’s opened up her massive posh house as a haven for Tiny’s, and she’s become the Crazy Tiny Lady. He says he’s in love. With another bloody Tiny. Another Twelve in fact. Why doesn’t he just snog a mirror or something?”

“Okay, yeah, that’s a bit weird, but Smith’s a really nice guy,” Clara protested.

The Doctor shrugged non-commitally, “Whatever, but he’s delusional when he says Smith looks like David Duchovny. Smith looks exactly like all the rest of us—gray, angry, and Scottish!”

Craig was staring at both of them like they were absolutely mad. They very likely were.

“I wanted to thank you for your help,” Craig said. “Before I go. But I’m really excited for the whole thing! You know what I always say: onwards and upwards! Well, actually, I’ve never said it before now, but it’s sort of got a spirit of adventure to it, yeah? Might keep that. I’m trying it out. It’s on a probationary period.”

Craig looked happier than Clara had ever seen him, and she couldn’t help mirroring his smile. “Thank you for your help, too. It was wonderful to meet you.”

Craig reached up to doff his hat, forgot how many he had on, knocked all of them off, and somehow managed to fall over himself.

“Sorry,” Craig squeaked, trying to pick up all his hats, but failing, before finally managing to begin the laborious process of re-hatting himself. “Once we get to our destination, I will make sure to tell everyone the story of Clara Oswald, the best humanity had to offer and true savior of our people.”

“Steady on,” Clara said, genuinely anxious. She spent a lot of time making sure Basil wasn’t telling outrageous lies about her, like her alleged invincibility or capability of hypnosis. “How about you don’t, and say you did? Or just say that I was helpful and kind. That’s a good story, yeah? Helpful and kind.”

Craig mulled over this, decided it was good, and nodded. “Helpful and kind. I can do that.”

“Goodbye, Craig,” Clara said, offering him a wave.

“I don’t say, ‘goodbye,’” Craig replied. “How about ‘see you around?’”

“See you around, then,” Clara winked.

Craig walked off, and Clara heard the door close behind him. The Doctor didn’t move to get up  to lock the door, because secretly he was a 12-year-old boy, with just as much care and attention to detail as any of the ones that had walked through her classroom, and Clara decided it could wait anyway. She was too busy staring at the ceiling of her flat, looking at patterns in the stippling.

“Do you think you’ll ever do that?” Clara asked after a while.

‘Do what? Fall in love with myself? Wear a frankly ridiculous amount of hats? Generally embarrass myself? No, never,” the Doctor responded.

“No. Go off colonizing. I mean you don’t seem interested in getting a job, or an education, really—“

“Why would you ask that question? Have you gone senile?” the Doctor asked, his voice genuinely concerned. “I’m not sure how you lot age, but you’re probably quite old, aren’t you? Are you losing your marbles, as it were?”

“No, I’m not—I’m not old! I’m just asking you a perfectly reasonable question.”

“That’s not a reasonable question at all,” the Doctor disagreed. “Why would I ever want to leave you?”

“I don’t know,” Clara mumbled, feeling quite silly all of a sudden. “You might get bored. You claim you’re bored all the time. I mean, you didn’t even want to come to class with me today—“

“Oh, ah, that,” the Doctor said, evasively. “I made a thing.”

“You _what_ now?” Clara asked, springing to her feet, going to the kitchen, and confirming her worst suspicions. Her microwave had been brutally, efficiently murdered. At least the new toaster was safe; it would have been a real tragedy to lose that toaster, as it had a special bagel setting.

Clara stomped back into the living room. “You rushed me off to classes so that you could use my microwave in your little Frankenstein experiments?”

“Science is an important, noble, pursuit, Clara. You can ask anyone. Especially Osgood or Basil.”

“Where the hell is this thing you made?” Clara asked in exasperation.

The Doctor gave her a cocky grin, and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his breast pocket, whipping them on.

“Look, they’re just like Basil’s, but—“ and at this the Doctor taped the side of one of the ear pieces, causing a whirring noise to sound out, “they’re sonic!”

“I’m never leaving you home alone again,” Clara groused, arms folded.

“You say that now, but pretty soon you’ll forget and leave me home alone again. I mean, you just forgot how much I care about you, not five minutes ago. Tried to ship me off to space! I don’t know how humans operate with your terribly inefficient brains.”

“I wasn’t—I didn’t—I could just kick you right now.”

“Now you’re threatening abuse? Clara, I have some very serious concerns about our relationship.”

“I swear,” Clara said, making a swipe at the Doctor on the coffee table and deliberately missing just so he would squeak and hide himself under the magazine. “If the next word out of your mouth is orifices, I will—“

The Doctor combat crawled from one side of the magazine to the other, peeked his head out, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “Orifices.”

Now he was just taking the piss. Clara lifted up the magazine with one hand, and snagged the Doctor, who was trying to keep a detached look on his face, with the other.

“What do you think?” Clara asked rhetorically. “Want to see what happens when you get flushed down the toilet? Or, have you ever read _Stuart Little_? I think you could do a right treat at cleaning my shower drains.”

“Shower drain one sounds fun, actually,” the Doctor said thoughtfully.

Clara rolled her eyes, “You would think that. Come on, do you want to get ice cream? I know we found out you’re lactose, but there’s the toppings.”

“That sounds agreeable,” the Doctor said, trying, and failing, to play it cool.

Clara placed the Doctor in her coat pocket before slipping on her jacket.

“Oh, you’ll never guess what one of Courtney’s AS levels is going to be,” Clara said, dumping some of her school things out of her bag, just to lighten the weight, then digging for her keys.

“English literature,” the Doctor guessed dryly.

“Okay, so that was a dead easy question. Apparently Disco said the exam was child’s play when he sat it, but he somehow managed to get all of his exams sat and was invited to Oxford, so…that’s Disco. But I’m pleased she’s taking his advice,” Clara pulled her keys out of her bag finally.

“Courtney still going to be a politician?” the Doctor asked as they walked out the door. “After her staging of the impressive, great Coal Hill Revolt?”

“Yes, and I pity anyone who tries to convince her otherwise,” Clara replied locking the door and heading down the stairs.

Halfway down the stairs, she remembered she hadn’t locked the Tiny Door. She thought about returning to her flat to do so, but in the end, she decided to leave it unlocked. If any Tiny wanted to bust into her apartment, it was, after all, just a strange sort of way to make friends. Clara had no small amount of experience with that.


End file.
